A Dissertation Submitted in the School of Business (SOB) as Partial/fulfilment of the Requirements of the Degree of Masters of accounting and Finance of Mzumbe University
Profitability is a key indicator of performance of any profit oriented business firm. Management performance in an organization among other things is measured in terms of profit made in a specified period of time. This corporate objective is attained as results of proper utilization of the firms’ resources for the purpose of maximizing profit to the level possible. Firms may, however, experience some difficulties in attaining the required profit due to increased competition among firms, pricing pressure and improved the efficiency in the organization. The purpose of this study was to: Assess the Influence of Demographic and Firms Specific Characteristics on Profitability on MSEs in Aluminium and Welding firm in Zanzibar. It was also set to determine the Influence of Access to Credit on Profitability of MSEs in Aluminium and Welding Industry in Zanzibar; to assess the Influence of Social Media Especially (Facebook and WhatsApp) in Accessing Market of Aluminium and Welding Works Among MSEs in Zanzibar and; to assess the Influence of Access to Government Work on Profitability of MSEs in the Aluminium and Welding Industries in Zanzibar. A resource based view theory was used to connect and formulate the hypotheses for variables used to measure profitability. The quantitative approach, multiple regressions analysis technique, was used to measure the best explanatory variables on the effect of explained variable with the help of STATA software, in a moderate sample size of 100 respondents. The findings indicated that, firm size measured in terms of the number of employee and company asset, firm type, business website, and doing business with government are the determinants of profitability in this study. Otherwise, owners’ age, firm age, education level, location and credit facilities don not have any statistically significant influence on profitability of aluminium and welding industries in Zanzibar. The study recommends that, the government should provide supports to these industries by providing training, financial support, and the better methods of preventing them against foreign competition, also the study recommend the uses of social media in accessing market.