The Effect of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Firm’s Performance of the Women Owned Enterprises in North-West Region of Nigeria: The Empirical Evidence

The main objective of this study is to examine the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance of women own enterprises in North-West region of Nigeria. Data were collected from the women own enterprises operating in North-West region of Nigeria using a cross-sectional study design. The study adopted convenient and simple random sampling techniques to select the sample by using Krejcie and Morgan formula to selected 234 respondents. Questionnaires were distributed and collected through the personally-administered method. In analyzing the relationship among the study variables, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the study hypotheses. This study finds that risk taking, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy are important strategic orientations for the performance of women own enterprises in North-West region of Nigeria. Therefore, drawing upon liberal feminist theory, this study examined the roles of entrepreneurial orientation is buffering the influence entrepreneurial orientation on survival of women own enterprises. The also revealed that innovativeness does not support this expectation as innovativeness has a significant negative influences on business performance. Interestingly, entrepreneurial orientation has a significant positive relationship with business performance. Finally, this study has succeeded in validating the aforementioned conceptualization as well as advancing significant theoretical and practical contributions to both researchers and business owners/managers for further understanding on the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on the business performance. This study propose that this kind of study could be extended to microfinance bank services on business survival of women own enterprises.