ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND THE PERFORMANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN KOGI STATE, NIGERIA: A MODERATING EFFECT OF MARKET ORIENTATION

The study examined the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in Kogi State, Nigeria with the moderating effect of market orientation (MO). SMEs are known to be important contributors to economic growth, employment and innovation, but are sometimes constrained due to a lack of strategic orientation, risk management and market responsiveness. The study explored the interaction between the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking) and the dimensions of market orientation (customer and competitive orientation) on the performance of SMEs. The study used survey research design with a population of 938,740 registered SMEs in Kogi East, Central and West senatorial district. A multi-stage sampling technique, stratified sampling, proportional sampling and simple random sampling was employed to obtain a representative sample of 400 SME owners, with 342 (85.5%) usable questionnaires returned. Descriptive statistics, multiple regression and correlation analysis were used for analyzing the data using SPSS version 27. Results showed that innovativeness (? = .073, p = .226) and proactiveness (? = .118, p = .077) had non-significant relationships with SME performance and risk-taking had a significant negative impact on SME performance (? = -.193, p = .002). As for the moderating relationship, customer orientation had a significant negative effect (r = -.106, p = .050) while competitive orientation had a positive effect (r = .291, p < .01). It is concluded that the effect of entrepreneurial and market orientation dimensions is combined and this combined effect has an impact on SME performance, the most important of which are risk taking and competitive awareness. Suggestions are provided to SME owners, policy makers and researchers.

0 23 Jun, 2026

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