INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE COMPETENCIES ON PERFORMANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN ZAMFARA STATE, NIGERIA

The study seeks to empirically examine the influence of knowledge competencies on small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) performance in Zamfara State, Nigeria. This is an area in entrepreneurship studies that received little or no attention in literature. The term knowledge competence is defined as a set of characteristics possessed by an entrepreneur that are related to superior performance in an enterprise.251 entrepreneurs were drawn randomly from a population of 628 registered SMEs from the State Ministry of Commerce and Industry record. A sample of 251 questionnaires was administered within the state, which constituted 30% of the population. The response rate was 227.Based on the responses, Descriptive statistics and Regression analysis were used to analyzed and interpret the responses gathered from the entrepreneurs, both analyses signifies that knowledge competencies has effect on the performance of SMEs in Zamfara State, Nigeria. It is therefore, recommended that entrepreneurship training should be dynamic mix of process and action focus with both theoretical and practical knowledge.