Entrepreneurial Competency and Business Success Among Indigenous Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises

Abstract

Globally, indigenous views and values have been documented as impacting enterprise and “competencies” and as such, practical means of addressing entrepreneurial impact. In spite of this, indigenous micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs) are faced with lack of appropriate knowledge, limited skills, limited access to information technology and modern production technology, all of which inform competency. This paper therefore assessed the extent to which entrepreneurial competence influenced business
success in MSMEs using between 50% and 80% indigenous materials. The study was conducted in Ogun, Oyo and Lagos states in Southwestern Nigeria. The MSMEs in the study area were stratified based on industrial capacity and from the light manufacturing segment. The purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 3 states and 20 MSMEs across different indigenous enterprises in the selected states. A well-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data generated were analysed using descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that lack of or limited entrepreneurial competencies are a result of lack of
entrepreneurship education. Impediments to indigenous enterprise development were observed to be: limited exposure and entrepreneurial skills of people who start and operate businesses which limit the success of their businesses . It is there fore recomm ended that entrepreneurship education and training should be incorporated into the vocational training curriculum to improve entrepreneurial competencies in the study area, and other environments with similar characteristics to ensure the success of indigenous enterprises.

Keywords: Indigenous Knowledge, Entrepreneurial Competencies, Indigenous Business Success