Abstract

Despite the promotion of cooperatives to raise the livelihood of Nigerians, poverty and income inequality have remained high. The world is also witnessing a rising digitalised economy and conventional cooperatives cannot be enough in these regards. It is therefore necessary to study Platform Cooperatives (PC) that is done on the web. The study investigated the awareness and challenges of PC in the Lagos State University of Science and Technology Community. Convenience sampling was used to select 137 respondents. Data was collected using questionnaires on personal characteristics, awareness and perceived challenges to participation in PC. Frequencies and percentages were used for data presentation. Results show that 44.5% of the respondents were male, 97.9% had higher formal education and 48.2% belonged to conventional cooperative societies. The majority (56.2%) of the respondents were aware of PC while lack of trust in online business (84.7%), poor internet access (84.7%), internet fraud (83.9%) and poor electricity infrastructure (80.3%) were envisaged challenges to participating in PC. The government should promote strong regulations to boost the trust of the people and assure security against fraud for internet-based businesses.

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