ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND PERFORMANCE OF MICRO AND SMALL ENTERPRISES IN VERITAS UNIVERSITY, ABUJA

Abstract

This study examined the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance among Micro and Small enterprises in Veritas University, Abuja. The study is anchored on personality trait and Resource-Based View (RBV) theories. Measures of entrepreneurial orientation are risk-taking, innovativeness and proactiveness while business performance is measured by a combination of financial and non-financial indicators of success. Sample size of 154 was selected a population of 250 registered enterprises at Veritas University. Structured questionnaire was used as instrument of data collection. The questionnaire was administered electronically using Goggle form. Out of the 154 questionnaires administered only 129 respondents responded. Data from the questionnaire were analysed using regression analysis with the aid of IBM SPSS v26.0. The findings showed that innovativeness, risk taking and proactiveness individually have significant positive effect on the performance.  The result also showed that innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness jointly have a significant positive effect on the performance. However, in the joint model, individual predictor of performance behaved differently with risk-taking and proactiveness having significant positive effect on performance while innovativeness has no significant effect. It is recommended that entrepreneurs who have the desire to improve business performance through entrepreneurial orientation should not solely rely on innovativeness because of its modest positive effect on performance, but should integrate innovativeness with risk-taking and proactiveness to create a more comprehensive strategy for success.