Entrepreneurial orientation and the performance of Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises in selected Municipalities of Limpopo Province: the role of market orientation and environmetal dynamism

Abstract

A growing number of recent studies highlight an avenue of entrepreneurial orientation. Previous studies have examined the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance (P) and and various mechanisms are intergarated in the relationship. The studies reveal inconsistent results, probably due to the omission of the mediating and moderating roles of market orienatation (MO) and environemental dynamism (ED). To explicitly address this gap, this study investigates how EO influences performance in selected municipalities of Limpopo Province: the role of MO and ED. The data was collected form 403 respondents across Capricorn and Sekhukhune Municipalities. The data was analysed using SmartPLS 4.0. The empirical findings of this study show that there is a significant positive relationship between EO and the performance of SMMEs. The study further shows that the relationship between EO and performance is partially mediated by MO and the relationship is also moderated by ED at an average weight. The contributions of this study are (i) that it unravels EO as a uni-dimesional construct and the effect it has on performance. The second contribution is assessing the roles of mediating and moderating variables that influence the EO-performance nexus. This paper fills a gap in the literature by exploring external business variables mediating and moderating the relationship between EO and performance and contributes to the discussion on the contradictory results regarding the relationship between EO and performance