Dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation and small and medium enterprise performance in emerging economies

The removal of trade barriers has encouraged the entry of new competitors into formerly protected markets. This situation creates pressure on many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies such as Tanzania. Using a survey method and cross-sectional research design, the research exami...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDevelopment southern Africa (Sandton, South Africa) Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 606 - 624
Main Authors Le Roux, Ingrid, Bengesi, Kenneth M K
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 04.07.2014
Subjects
Business
Cross-sectional analysis
Economic development
emerging economies
Emerging markets
entrepreneurial
entrepreneurial orientation dimensions
Entrepreneurs
Export-import trade
Forecasts
Market
Markets
Risk
Small and medium sized enterprises
small business
Surveys
Tanzania
Variance
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Summary:The removal of trade barriers has encouraged the entry of new competitors into formerly protected markets. This situation creates pressure on many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies such as Tanzania. Using a survey method and cross-sectional research design, the research examines three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), namely: pro-activeness, risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness. Understanding their relationships and variance may help to improve our ability to explain SME performance. The findings contribute to how SME performance in emerging economies can be enhanced to enable SMEs to face challenges posed by competitor influx in the context of an open market economy. The findings indicate a strong relationship between EO dimensions and performance, with risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness moderating the effect of pro-activeness. The proposed model could predict 72% of the variance explained in SME performance.
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ISSN:0376-835X
1470-3637
DOI:10.1080/0376835X.2014.913474