Entrepreneurial orientation and performance of small and medium scale enterprises in Ebonyi State Matthias Elom Egede1, Dr. Agwu Arisi-Nwugballa Emmanuel2, Dr. Onyeizugbe Chinedu U.3 1Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki 2Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki 3Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Online published on 4 August, 2018. Abstract Despite many research on the relationship between EO and performance, no conclusion has been drawn. A look at extant literature reveals inconsistent findings on the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on firms’ performance, SMEs being the bedrock of Nigerian economy and Ebonyi State in particular are in need of solutions to their poor performances given that financial advances by government have failed in this direction. Specifically, the study seeks to find the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation that is most relevant to the performance of SMEs in the state, given that most previous studies treated entrepreneurial orientation as a uni-dimensional construct, thus, resulting to ambiguous findings. To achieve this, self administered questionnaire was distributed to 400 randomly selected SMEs, 246 copies were retrieved constituting 61.50 per cent return rate. Validity and reliability of the instrument were established through factor analysis and Cronbach alpha (α) respectively, The 5 formulated hypotheses were tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regressions. Findings showed that innovativeness, proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness are related to performance, only competitive aggressiveness have strong relationship with both product and customer performance, innovativeness and proactiveness have strong relationship with customer performance and weak relationship with product performance, while risk-taking and autonomy have no relationship with any of the performance measures. There was no evidence to support that all EO dimensions are beneficial SMEs and in the state. Therefore, SMEs in the state should make competitive aggressiveness the focal point of their entrepreneurial orientation as the pursuit of all the dimensions could only lead to misplaced priorities and waste of resources. Top Keywords Entrepreneurial OrientationInnovativeness, Proactiveness, Risk-taking, Competitive aggressiveness, Autonomy, Small and Medium Enterprises, Performance. Top |