ABSTRACT

The study examined the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance of small and medium scale enterprises in South East, Nigeria. Specifically, the study ascertained the level of innovativeness, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, risk taking and autonomy among SMEs in South East, Nigeria; examined the effect of innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness, on sales volume of SMEs in South East, Nigeria; determined the influence of innovativeness, autonomy and risk taking on competitive advantage of SMEs in the South East, Nigeria; examined the effect of proactiveness on customers retention by selected small and medium scale enterprises in the South East, Nigeria and examined the combined effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance of SMEs in the South East, Nigeria. The researcher adopted descriptive survey research design. The population of study were 7,789 (small scale businesses registered with CAC) and 203 (medium scale businesses registered with CAC) in the South East, Nigeria. With a known population, Yamane (1967) formula was adopted to select 516 sample size. However, from the 516 copies of the questionnaire administered, 494 copies were completed and returned. Proportionate and purposive sampling technique were adopted for the selection of respondents. Questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. The data were subjected to Cronbach Alpha reliability test and value of 0.833 was realized which showed that the instrument was highly reliable. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency and percentage distribution. The hypotheses were tested with simple and multiple linear regression analysis models. The descriptive results revealed that among the five dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, level of risk taking by the firms was ranked 1^st with the mean value of 4.41; level of innovativeness of the firm was ranked 2^nd with the mean value of 4.10. More so, competiveness aggressiveness of the firm and level of proactiveness of the firm were ranked 3^rd and 4^th with a mean value of 4.01 and 3.92 respectively. In addition, firm’s level of autonomy was ranked 5^th with a mean value of 3.44. The empirical result revealed that; innovativeness has significant effect on sales volume. Innovativeness has significant influence on competitive advantage. Proactiveness has significant effect on customer retention. Competitive aggressiveness has significant influence on sales volume of SMEs in the South East, Nigeria. Autonomy has no significant effect on competitive advantage. Risk taking has significant effect on competitive advantage. There is significant combined effect of entrepreneurial orientation (innovativeness, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, risk taking, autonomy) on business performance (sales volume, customer retention and competitive advantage) of the selected small and medium scale enterprises in the South East, Nigeria. The researcher therefore, concluded that SMEs in South East, Nigeria integrate most of the entrepreneurial orientation dimensions into daily operation and that entrepreneurial orientation has significant positive effect on performance of SMEs in South East, Nigeria. The researcher recommended among others that managers of SMEs should improve their performance by maximizing opportunities existing in their business environment amongst others.