The Nexus Between Entrepreneurship and Skill Acquisition: Evidence from Small Business Owners

This paper analyses the association between skill learning and entrepreneurial performance of small business owners and how technical skills, managerial skills and interpersonal skills affect the results of the business. The survey design was used and 200 small business owners were sampled out of which 188 responses were valid. Pearson correlation and multiple regression were used to analyze data to investigate the relationships between acquisition of skills and entrepreneurial performance. The findings show that there is a moderate positive correlation between overall skill acquisition and business performance (r = 0.52, p < 0.01), which implies that those entrepreneurs who actively work on the acquisition of relevant skills have a higher operational efficiency and growth. Moreover, regression analysis showed that technical, managerial and interpersonal skills have a significant impact on the performance of the small business with managerial skills having the highest influence. These results indicate the importance of the ongoing learning process and skill improvement in future entrepreneurial success and maintenance of competitive advantage in the small business setting. On the basis of these insights, the research proposes focused training, mentorship and policy assistance to enable skill building among the entrepreneurs. The research is relevant to the increasing literature on entrepreneurship in that it offers empirical data on the role of structured acquisition of skills in business performance and the research has practical implications on both the practitioners and policymakers in the development of small businesses.