ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP GROWTH ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA.

The study evaluated the role of Entrepreneurship Growth on the performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in South-East, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to: examine the effect of identification of market opportunities on the profitability of Small and Medium Enterprises in South-East, Nigeria and evaluate the effect of employment generation on the productivity of Small and Medium Enterprises in South-East, Nigeria. The study used the survey approach. The primary sources were personal interview and the administration of questionnaire. Purposive sampling method was used to select a total sample size of ten (10) firms. The population of the study was two thousand five hundred forty (2540) staff. A stratified sampling method was adopted. The adequate sample size of 334 was determined using Freund and William's statistic formula. 297 staff returned the questionnaire and accurately filled. That gave 88 percent response rate. The validity of the instrument was tested using content analysis and the result was good. The reliability was tested using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). It gave a reliability co-efficient of 0.80 which was also good. Data was presented and analyzed by mean score (3.0 and above agreed while below 3.0 disagreed) and standard deviation using Sprint Likert Scale. The hypotheses were analyzed using Z - test statistics tool. The findings indicated that Identification of market opportunities on the profitability had positive effect on Small and Medium Enterprises in South-East, Nigeria Z (95, n = 294) = 5.283 < 6.900, p > 0.05 and Employment generation on the productivity had positive effect on Small and Medium Enterprises in South-East, Nigeria Z (95,
n = 294) = 5.283 < 6.900, p > 0.05. The study concluded that identification of market opportunities and Employment generation had positive effect on the profitability and productivity of small and Medium Enterprises in South-East, Nigeria. The study recommended among others that SMEs should be encouraged to identify the needs of the customers and accordingly plan, design, and deliver the products or services to derive customer satisfaction and equally enable them to proceed ahead of the competition due to the introduction of customer-oriented products.