| dc.description.abstract | Entrepreneurship has been regarded to have a significant effect on the development and
performance of businesses worldwide. The effect is however contingent upon many different
factors. How these factors interact in an integrated configuration is a key issue for
organizations. Vital among these factors are business environment and services that affect
product development and service delivery. However there are few studies on
entrepreneurship in Kenya especially those integrating business environmental factors and
development services. This study therefore intended to interrogate the nature and effect of
entrepreneurial orientation, moderating roles of internal and external business environments
as well as business development services, and their joint effect on the performance of small
and medium enterprises in Kenya. The study adopted a cross sectional survey design and
used primary data collected from a sample of 150 enterprises in the manufacturing sector in
Nairobi. To examine the moderating and joint inter-variable relationships, both descriptive
and inferential statistical approaches were used to analyze the data at composite, dimensional
and parameter levels. The findings illustrate that, contrary to expectation, the composite and
construct forms of entrepreneurial orientation had no direct effect on performance. However,
further regressions on entrepreneurial orientation measures indicate that three parameters
significantly affected performance. These findings therefore demonstrate that, at composite
and construct level, entrepreneurial orientation did not affect performance, whereas at
individual parameter level entrepreneurial orientation had a significant relationship. The
findings at composite and construct levels contradict expectation of the study while those at
parameter level support the theory that entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to
performance. Concerning internal business environment, the study found lack of moderating
on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance. Additional tests to
determine if internal business environment mediates the relationship also found no effect. As
for external business environment, this study confirmed presence of a significant moderating
effect on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance. In another
vein, business development services were found to have a positive and significant, although
weak moderating effect, on the link between entrepreneurial orientation and performance of
small and medium enterprises in the study. However, in view of the weak moderation result,
additional tests to determine other roles of business development services found that the
variable was a very strong mediator in the relationship. In addition, this study found that,
whereas the joint effect of all the predictor variables on performance was greater than
individual effects of entrepreneurial orientation, internal and external business environments,
the individual effect of business development services were greater than the joint effect. This
study concludes that while performance of the studied small and medium enterprises were
generally affected by entrepreneurial orientation and external business environmental
changes, internal business environment had no moderating or mediating effect. In contrast,
business development services had moderating and mediating effect on their performance.
These findings find support in theory and empirical literature. This study therefore
recommends that small and medium manufacturing enterprises in Nairobi should develop
strategies to manage these variables and improve their performance.
Key Words: Entrepreneurial Orientation, Business environment, Business Development
Services, Performance, Moderating, Mediating, Small and Medium Enterprises. | en_US |
