Entrepreneurial Orientation and Business Performance of Non-Oil Exporting SMEs in Lagos State, Nigeria

Evidences abound on the importance of entrepreneurship and its orientation on the development of economy of the world. It has been established by literature that to keep growing especially in a developing economy like Nigeria, SMEs are key factors due to their resilience attitude propelled by their orientations. This study therefore assessed how the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (innovativeness, risk-taking and pro-activeness) influenced the performance of exporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Lagos State Nigeria. It adopted a Descriptive research design via the structured survey instrument- questionnaire administered to a sample of 134 exporters handling non-oil export in medium and low-technology manufacture industries, mechanised agriculture and as suppliers of merchandise. The data collected were analysed using regression analysis with aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 23). The result of the descriptive data imply that entrepreneurial orientation works better when all the features are put to use as a whole than as individual, then the contributions will have greater impact on the performance of the firm. However, their innovativeness was low. Therefore, entrepreneurial innovativeness should be encouraged and enhanced by improving the domestic and foreign technological networking for competitive innovations in the foreign markets. Besides, entrepreneurship education should be promoted to permeate the socio-economic environment with attributes necessary for sustainable growth, the export production base should be upgraded technologically to enhance innovativeness, as well as stable and positive trade policies and regulations among other factors should be entrenched in the system to improve the socio-economic environment stressor.