ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS AND PERFORMANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES (SMEs) IN NORTH CENTRAL OF NIGERIA

Abstract

Activities of a number of small and medium enterprises in North Central of Nigeria have been recently understated and under reported which makes it apparent that studies on entrepreneurial traits and performance of SMEs have fallen short of the expectations of government and people of North Central of Nigeria. However, this study explored the relationship between entrepreneurial traits and performance of SMEs in North Central of Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted. The population of the study is 454,000 SMEs in North Central of Nigeria, from which a sample size of 400 SMEs was drawn, Taro Yamane’s Formula. To collect primary data, a standardized questionnaire with a five-point Likert response scale was used. To assess the research questions and test the hypotheses, descriptive and inferential statistics were utilised, respectively. Findings revealed that innovativeness has significant positive effect on sales growth (r = 0.988, at p=0.01<0.05). It was found that pro-activeness had significant positive effect on market share at R = 0.996^a, p < 0.05. The model R² was 0.992, constant value (alpha) of 0.051, the coefficient of independent variable (beta=0.999) and F-Value yielded 51279.743. It was concluded that entrepreneurial traits represent the tools for promoting performance of SMEs. The study recommends that to achieve higher performance among small and medium enterprises, emphasis should be placed on entrepreneurial best practices on innovativeness and pro-activeness.