1. Introduction
The term performance is a common word in strategy management. All companies including small and medium enterprises want to measure their performance. In management, there are common words like performance evaluation, performance assessment, performance management, performance measurement (Aminu & Shariff, 2015) [6]. To all entrepreneurs, performance is very important. Firm performance can be defined and measured in terms of profitability, growth, market value, the total return on the shareholder, economic value added, customer satisfaction, based on the stakeholders’ expectations (Mihaela, 2017) [39]. This topic is one of the widely researched areas. From various reviews of literature, there are over twenty predictors of firm performance. They include innovation (Ndesaulwa & Kikula, 2016; Olughor, 2015) [47] employment and training (Wood, 2006) [67], quality management (Wood, 2006) [67], outsourcing and finance (Wood, 2006) [67] entrepreneurial orientation (Wambugu, Gichira, & Wanjau, 2016) [63] market orientation (Aliyu, 2014) [4] firms resources (Hafeez, Shariff & Lazim, 2012) [19] SME branding (Hafeez, Shariff & Lazim, 2012) [19], human resources practices (Wright, Gardner, Monihan & Allen, 2005) [68], business environment (Ahmad, Ramayah & Wilson, 2010) [2], gender differences (Watson, 2011), ownership structure (Mgeni & Nayak, 2016; Al-Matari, Swidi & Fadzil, 2013) [41], social capital (Nasip, Hassan & Muda, 2013), operation (Nasip, Hassan & Muda, 2013), learning orientation and intellectual capital(Waqas, Ullah, & Nouman, 2017; kanchana, & Mohan, 2017) [65, 26].
SMEs performance entails the provision of values to its stakeholders which includes the owners, customers, government, and the society (Aminu & Shariff, 2015) [6]. Performance assessment involves the measurement of the usage of a firm’s resources (Santos & Brito, 2012) [52]. Firm performance can be measured quantitatively and qualitatively (Gerba & Viswanadaham, 2016). Many studies on firm performance use various organizational resources to access a firm’s performance. Out of all these factors, we investigate the effects of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises. Business performance of a firm can be conceptualized as an organization’s capability to come up with satisfactory results and achievements. The three types of organization performance are financial performance, business performance and organizational performance (Mgeni & Nayak, 2016) [41].
Researchers are laying much emphasis on SMEs because of their importance to the economic growth of every country (Tehseen & Ramayah, 2015) [59]. SMEs are more important to the developing countries, as they contribute to improvement in income distribution, a stimulant to economic development and productivity ((Tehseen & Ramayah, 2015) [59]. The term entrepreneurship is popular today, but there is no consensus on its definition (Kraus et al., 2012) [27]. Mbhele (2012) defined entrepreneurship ‘as an activity that involves the discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities to introduce new goods and services, ways of organizing, markets, processes and raw materials through organizing efforts that previously had not existed.’
2. Review of Literature
This study is conducted to examine the impact of individual dimensions of EO construct over the performance of SMEs in Lagos Nigeria. One of the fastest and largest growing city in Africa is Lagos. It is the economic Capital of Nigeria (Wang & Maduako, 2018) [64]. Nigerian Population Commission (NPC), carried out a Census in 2006 showed that Lagos state has a population of 9million, though this figure was disputed by Lagos state government, who stated that more than 20 million people inhabit Lagos state (Wang & Maduako, 2018) [64].
2.1 Objectives of the Study
Considering, the importance of each dimension of EO, this study will focus on the following objectives.
1) What is the impact of innovativeness over the performance of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria
2) What is the impact of proactiveness over the performance of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria
3) What is the impact of risk-taking on the performance of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria
4) What is the impact of competitive aggression over the performance of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria
5) What is the impact of autonomy on the performance of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria
6) What is the overall impact of EO on the performance of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria