Effect of Entrepreneurial Orientation on the Performance of Small Businesses in the Cape Coast Metropolis

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study looked at the impact of creativity, pro-activeness and risk-taking on performance of small business in Cape Coast Metropolis. The study discussed the theory of firm development, resource-based theory, the principle of entrepreneurship orientation and small business performance evaluation as part of the theoretical and conceptual analysis. The thesis adopted the descriptive design discussed in a quantitative analysis. In all, 132 small businesses in the Cape Coast Metropolis were included in the study and the research employed a questionnaire to elicit the required data for the study. The study employed frequency tables and regression analysis to examine the level of entrepreneurial orientation between small businesses in Cape Coast Metropolis. The finding indicates that risk taking has an effect of the performance (profit growth) potential of sampled small businesses. The study found a significant relationship between age of business and firm performance. This finding indicates that the age of the sampled small businesses, whether young or old, has an effect on the performance of the business. The significant findings may be attributed to the fact that the more you stay in business the more you get experience to run the business effectively. Based on the results, it is recommended that managers of small businesses or entrepreneurs in Cape Coast Metropolis must be enrolled in effective entrepreneurial orientation programmes to equip them with entrepreneurial knowledge, which will go a long way in helping them run their small businesses and other businesses effectively