KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SMEs) IN NIGERIA

*Timinepere Ogele Court & Binaebi Kingsley Ogbolo
Department of Business Administration, University of Africa, Toru-Orua, Nigeria
*Correspondence Email: timi2k2002@gmail.com; timinepere.court@uat.edu.ng

Abstract

The study explored the nexus between knowledge sharing and entrepreneurial orientation of small and medium enterprises in Bayelsa State. The study applied a quantitative design and selected a sample of 312 managers of SMEs through simple random and stratified sampling methods. A structured questionnaire designed in a 5-point Likert form was utilized in collecting data through the distribution of the questionnaire to respondents. The content approach was adopted to ascertain the validity of the measuring instrument while Cronbach alpha was applied to determine the reliability of the measurement instrument. The data collected were analyzed with multivariate regression and found that knowledge sharing had a  positive but no significant effect on risk-taking;  knowledge sharing had a positive significant effect on innovativeness of small and medium enterprises; knowledge sharing had a  positive but no significant effect on proactiveness of small and medium enterprises; knowledge sharing had a positive significant effect on the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises; and knowledge sharing had a positive but no significant effect on autonomy of small and medium enterprises in Bayelsa state. The study concluded that knowledge sharing contributed to the entrepreneurial orientation of small and medium enterprises in Bayelsa State. In tandem with the findings, we recommended that managers and owner managers of SMEs should build knowledge management systems that facilitate exchange of intellectual capital to enhance entrepreneurial orientations to attain sustainable competitive edge. 

Keywords: Knowledge sharing, Risk-taking, Autonomy, Competitiveness, Proactiveness, Entrepreneurship and SMEs