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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are widely regarded as engines of employment, innovation and diversification in developing economies, and Nigeria is no exception. Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, is one of Nigeria’s major commercial centres outside Lagos, hosting a growing base of SMEs across manufacturing, trade and services alongside its dominant oil and gas industry. The strategic posture that SME owners and managers adopt toward opportunity-seeking behaviour has long been of interest to entrepreneurship scholars. Miller (1983) characterised an entrepreneurial firm as one that engages in product-market innovation, undertakes somewhat risky ventures and is first to introduce proactive innovations ahead of competitors, while Covin and Slevin (1989) operationalised this idea as entrepreneurial orientation (EO), a strategic posture comprising innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness, and argued that firms exhibiting a strongly entrepreneurial posture are better positioned to perform, particularly under competitive or hostile market conditions.
Empirical evidence from Rivers State lends support to this theoretical position. Aigboje (2020), studying selected indigenous SME manufacturing companies in Port Harcourt, found a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm survival, recommending that SME owners and managers be proactive and engage in regular innovation to improve performance, while also noting that constraints such as insufficient capital outlay, lack of focus and inadequate market research continued to undermine the translation of entrepreneurial orientation into stronger outcomes. Adiele and Onuoha (2023) similarly found that corporate entrepreneurship significantly influenced the task performance of SMEs in Rivers State, and Bob-Manuel (2024) reported a significant relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance among SMEs in the same state. More recently, Gborogbosi and Onuoha (2025) found that entrepreneurial intention is a significant predictor of innovation among SMEs in Rivers State, underscoring the continued relevance of entrepreneurial behaviour to SME outcomes in the region.
Despite this accumulating evidence, much of the existing Rivers State literature has concentrated on specific sub-sectors, such as paint and bottled water manufacturing firms in Aigboje’s (2020) sample, or on related but narrower constructs such as corporate entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention, rather than on the full, classical entrepreneurial orientation construct of innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness across a broader cross-section of SMEs operating in Port Harcourt. Given the continued difficulties many SMEs in the city face in sustaining growth and survival, it is important to examine more broadly how entrepreneurial orientation relates to the performance of SMEs in Port Harcourt. This is the concern that motivates the present study.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
SMEs in Port Harcourt continue to encounter significant performance and survival challenges, including insufficient capital outlay, lack of strategic focus and inadequate market research, notwithstanding evidence that entrepreneurial orientation is positively associated with performance among SMEs in Rivers State (Aigboje, 2020). Where owners and managers are insufficiently innovative, risk-averse or reactive rather than proactive in the face of market opportunities and competitive pressure, SMEs may struggle to sustain the growth and survival that a stronger entrepreneurial posture could otherwise support.
A further difficulty is that existing empirical evidence specific to Rivers State has tended to be sector-specific, such as manufacturing SMEs producing paint and bottled water (Aigboje, 2020), or has examined related but distinct constructs such as corporate entrepreneurship (Adiele & Onuoha, 2023; Bob-Manuel, 2024) and entrepreneurial intention (Gborogbosi & Onuoha, 2025) rather than the classical, multidimensional entrepreneurial orientation construct itself. Consequently, there is limited broad-based evidence on how the specific dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, namely innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness, individually relate to performance across a wider cross-section of SMEs in Port Harcourt. It is this gap that the present study seeks to address.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The broad objective of this study is to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt. The specific objectives are to:
- examine the effect of innovativeness on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt;
- determine the effect of risk-taking on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt
- assess the effect of proactiveness on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt.
1.4 Research Questions
The study is guided by the following research questions:
- What effect does innovativeness have on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt?
- What effect does risk-taking have on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt?
- What effect does proactiveness have on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses are formulated to guide the study:
Ho1: Innovativeness has no significant effect on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt.
Ho2: Risk-taking has no significant effect on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt.
Ho3: Proactiveness has no significant effect on the performance of selected SMEs in Port Harcourt.
1.6 Significance of the Study
Theoretically, the study extends the entrepreneurial orientation framework of Miller (1983) and Covin and Slevin (1989) to a broader cross-section of Port Harcourt SMEs, complementing sector-specific evidence from Aigboje (2020) and construct-adjacent evidence on corporate entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention (Adiele & Onuoha, 2023; Bob-Manuel, 2024; Gborogbosi & Onuoha, 2025) with dimension-specific findings drawn from the classical entrepreneurial orientation construct.
Practically, the findings will assist SME owners and managers in Port Harcourt in identifying which entrepreneurial orientation dimensions most strongly influence performance, thereby guiding decisions on innovation, risk management and competitive positioning. Government agencies such as the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and the Rivers State Ministry of Trade and Investment may also draw on the findings when designing SME support programmes. Prospective entrepreneurs and future researchers examining entrepreneurial orientation and SME performance in Nigeria will further benefit from the study.
1.7 Scope of the Study
This study is delimited in content to entrepreneurial orientation, measured through innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness, and SME performance, measured from the perspective of owners and managers of the case study firms. Geographically, the study is confined to selected SMEs operating within Port Harcourt metropolis, Rivers State, drawn from across manufacturing, trade and service sub-sectors rather than a single industry. The study is further limited to a defined recent period during which primary data will be collected through the administration of structured questionnaires, and does not extend to large enterprises or SMEs located outside Port Harcourt.
1.8 Definition of Terms
Entrepreneurial Orientation: the strategic posture and decision-making processes that firms use to identify and act on opportunities, typically encompassing innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness (Covin & Slevin, 1989).
Small and Medium Enterprise (SME): a business enterprise, other than a large corporation, typically classified by criteria such as employee count, asset value or annual turnover, as defined by relevant national regulatory agencies.
Firm Performance: the extent to which a business achieves its financial and non-financial objectives, such as sales growth, profitability or market share.
Innovativeness: a firm’s tendency to support new ideas, novelty, experimentation and creative processes that may result in new products, services or methods.
Risk-Taking: a firm’s willingness to commit significant resources to ventures with uncertain outcomes or to venture into the unknown.
Proactiveness: a forward-looking perspective characterised by the introduction of new products or services ahead of competition and acting in anticipation of future demand.
Business Survival: the continued existence and operation of a firm beyond critical early periods typically associated with high rates of business failure.
Strategic Posture: the overall orientation and approach a firm’s management adopts toward competitive decision-making and opportunity pursuit (Miller, 1983).
References
Adiele, L. C., & Onuoha, B. C. (2023). Corporate entrepreneurship and task performance of SMEs in Rivers State. International Academy Journal of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurial Studies, 10(1), 71–83.
Aigboje, P. O. (2020). Entrepreneurial orientation and survival of SME manufacturing companies in River State, Nigeria. American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research, 4(11), 1–9.
Bob-Manuel, I. V. (2024). Corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance of SMEs in Rivers State. International Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship Research, 14(11), 19–32.
Covin, J. G., & Slevin, D. P. (1989). Strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environments. Strategic Management Journal, 10(1), 75–87.
Gborogbosi, L. G., & Onuoha, B. C. (2025). Entrepreneurial intention and innovation of small and medium scale enterprises in Rivers State. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5075735
Miller, D. (1983). The correlates of entrepreneurship in three types of firms. Management Science, 29(7), 770–791.