The economic performance related implications of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship based SMEs are questionable in the Nigeria context due to lack of entrepreneurial tendency and mismatch between education acquisition and market-based skills requirement; lack of proper institutional infrastructure that facilitates in creation, identification and exploitation of opportunities and acquisition of resources. This research reviews the role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and institutional environment in entrepreneurial orientation and development of a successful entrepreneurship-based SME. The aim is to integrate the institutional environment, self-efficacy, to address the aforementioned challenges to entrepreneurship-based SME’s development. The review encouraged the role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and institutional environment in the development of a successful entrepreneurship-based SME. Entrepreneurship, regardless of social, economic and geopolitical circumstances, is a critical engine for sustainable economic growth. Entrepreneurship is frequently considered as a remedy to the severe global sustainability challenges by both scholarly as well as practitioner-based research findings. Entrepreneurship itself is an outcome of a set of human characteristics that enables one to identify, exploit and even create market opportunities related to incremental growth. These characteristics enable entrepreneurs to comprehend and utilize the known and familiar tactics to market-related prospects while simultaneously trying to identify new opportunities and approaches that lend efficiency. Nevertheless, the production and operation of a successful small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) enterprise is a major concern.