Entrepreneurial Orientation and Performance of Small Business in Vryburg Region North West Province South Africa

Edem Korku Agbobli,Chux Gervase Iwu,Olabanji Oni

doi:10.6000/1929-7092.2019.08.07

Abstract

Small businesses play a significant role in job creation, economic growth and development, innovation, competitiveness and poverty alleviation that eventually improve business performance. The purpose of this study was to assess the association between Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness and autonomy) and performance of small business in Vryburg area North West Province South Africa(SA). This quantitative study utilised questionnaire for data collection in a survey. The population were small business owners/managers in North West Province South Africa. Simple random sampling method was utilised to obtain participants for the study. The study utilised descriptive and inferential statistics. The result shows that only three attributes (innovativeness, risk taking and proactiveness) influence business performance while no association was found between autonomy and business performance. Additionally, positive relationship exists between the overall EO and the performance of small business. Empirically, the study contributes to the literature on EO and advance recommendations to improve the EO of small business in South Africa. The study recommends that policy makers, owners and managers of small business strategize on enterprise development and better business performance of small business in Vryburg area North West Province South Africa.

Highlights

Entrepreneurship is generally seen as the backbone of any economy – developed and emerging
Examples abound in countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Japan where the small business sector is regarded as the engine of economic growth and job creation
The paper is structured as follows: the section reviews the literature in which case we explore the definition of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), the theory of EO, the relationship between EO and business performance of small businesses

Summary

Introduction

Entrepreneurship is generally seen as the backbone of any economy – developed and emerging. Examples abound in countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Japan where the small business sector is regarded as the engine of economic growth and job creation. This is seen to be the case because of the high levels of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) among the people in these countries leading Hznafi (2012) to point out that small businesses with advanced level of EO often perform better than small businesses with lesser level of EO. The anticipation is that small businesses will spearhead economic advancement of the Vryburg area

Objectives

Methods

Results