Entrepreneurship Programs Boost Small Business Efficiency & Growth

Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global
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Entrepreneurship programs, operational efficiency and growth of small businesses
Aderemi Ayinla Alarape,
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JEC
1,3 Entrepreneurship programs,
operational efficiency and growth
of small businesses
222
Aderemi Ayinla Alarape
Centre for Industrial Research and Development,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to examine the impact of owners/managers of small businesses
participating in entrepreneurship programs on operational efficiency and growth of small businesses.
Design/methodology/approach – It is a cross-sectional study analysis of the impact of exposure of
owner-managers of small businesses on their performance (i.e. operational efficiency and growth rate)
in a non-contrived environment. The data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Both
descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for the analysis and the degree of error is a ¼ 0.05.
Findings – Small businesses, whose owner-managers who have the experience of participating in
entrepreneurship programs, exhibited superior managerial practice; hence, a higher gross-margin and
rate of growth than small businesses whose owner-managers did not have such experiential learning.
Research limitations/implications – The members of the National Association of Small Scale
Industrialists, Lagos Chapter served as the population for the study. The membership strength was
224 and all were contacted; however, only 62 members responded. Considering the fact that this is
62 firms not just 62 individuals, it looks reasonably large. A possible area for future research is the
comparative study of the impacts of the frequency of participation and variants of entrepreneurship
programs on performance of small businesses.
Practical implications – There is a need to improve the managerial practice of small businesses
through exposure of owners/managers to entrepreneurship programs in order to enhance their
performance and their transition to medium and large businesses.
Originality/value – The paper developed an experiential learning-performance framework to
examine the impact of entrepreneurship programs on performance of small businesses and linked
higher operational efficiency and growth rate to better managerial practice, a fall-out of experiential
learning from exposure to entrepreneurship programs.
Keywords Entrepreneurship, Experiential learning, Small enterprises, Management training
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Across the World, there are entrepreneurship programs designed to develop the
thought-style and skills of identifying business opportunity; analytic and problem
solving; creativity; network relations; risk-taking; business start-up and management
among owners/managers of small businesses. Further, to acquaint them with basic
facts and information on major changes in legal and regulatory environment vis-à-vis
Journal of Enterprising Communities:
People and Places in the Global business start-up, nurturing and harvest. This is because developing entrepreneurial
Economy skills among SME managers contributes to profitability (Cushion, 1996) and growth
Vol. 1 No. 3, 2007
pp. 222-239 (Gray, 1997). Unlike in larger organizations, where the positive impact of management
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1750-6204
development on performance has been demonstrated, in SMEs increased management
DOI 10.1108/17506200710779530 training does not automatically lead to improvements (Westhead and Storey, 1996).
Organizing entrepreneurship programs to owner-managers of small businesses is a Operational
recent development in Nigeria dated to late 1980s, with the introduction of efficiency and
work-for-yourself program (WFY). The recent surge for entrepreneurship training
cannot be divorced from the realization by Nigerian governments that the solution to growth
the poor state of industrialization and unemployment is the promotion of small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) development. This among others will not only fight
unemployment but other economic and spatial problems like poverty and its 223
accompanied social vices. In addition, the emphasis on SMEs will promote the
utilization of local resources, saving of scarce foreign exchange and the promotion of
indigenous technology and process skills.

It is due to these facts that many governmental institutions and non-governmental
institutions in Nigeria organized poverty reduction, vocational-skills upgrading
programs and entrepreneur-managerial competences programs. The variant of
entrepreneurship programs in Nigeria are.
The work-for-yourself program

This is an individual-based training program by the Federal Ministry of Industries in
February 1987 with the assistance of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and
the British Council and implemented in the then 21 States of the Federation. The
program aimed at developing entrepreneurial and innovative skills. Emphasis was on
achievement and motivational tests, business start-up and management techniques
and assistance institutions to small businesses. The beneficiaries of the scheme were
retired and retrenched workers from the public sector, unemployed graduates and
businesspersons who have little formal education but technical skills.
The start- and improve-your-business programs

The start- and improve-your-business (SIYB) models is another individual-based
entrepreneurial training program developed and introduced by ILO into Nigeria under
a technical assistance provided by ILO to the Nigerian Employers Consultative
Association – Small and Medium Enterprises (NECA-SMEs) Network. The SIYB was
designed to assist people who wish to start their business. People who have concrete
business ideas and access to relevant skills and able to read and write.
Work improvement for small enterprises

The “Work improvement for small enterprises” (WISE) is a product of collaborative
efforts between ILO and NECA in 1997. The thrust of the entrepreneurship program is
to sensitize owners/managers of SMEs in Nigeria on the importance of hygiene factors
and the elimination of industrial accidents in factories to increasing the productivity of
the workers at work places.
Inasmuch as our concern here, is not the evaluation of the superiority or efficacy of
one variant over the other but the impact that exposure of small business
owners/managers to entrepreneurship program has on their firm performance. Unlike
in larger organizations, where the positive impact of management development on
performance has been demonstrated, in SMEs increased management training does not
automatically lead to improvements (Westhead and Storey, 1996). The small firm is not
merely a scaled down version of a large firm (Storey, 1994). The nature of the SME
JEC environment makes it difficult to improve performance through training (Curran et al.,
1,3 1997; Blackburn and Kitching, 1997; Cosh et al., 1998).
Therefore, the issue of interest is whether the owners/managers of small businesses
participation in the knowledge-based entrepreneurship programs leads to better
managerial practice, profit and growth. This paper will therefore contribute to existing
knowledge on the efficacy or inefficacy of the knowledge-based entrepreneurship
224 programs to lead to better managerial practice and performance of small businesses.
Theoretical background
There are many approaches to explaining the learning-performance relationship of
firms. Notable ones are the knowledge-based theory, resource-based theory,
situational-based approach and social-network approach. The knowledge-based
approach highlights the role of the firm as a repository of knowledge, a set of routines
and procedures where the firm inscribes its knowledge to respond to the external
stimuli selected through an evolutionary process of life-long learning. Thus, the
knowledge-based approach enables us to describe small firms in terms of know-how,
behaviors, routine and standard procedures developed through selection and retention
processes, implementation of strategies aimed at maximizing the adjustment degree
between the firm and the external environment.
The resource-based approach explained the performance of a firm as a function of
its capability of having access to and/or developing, within itself, critical and
inimitable resources (Barney, 1991; Grant, 1991). The situational-based approach
while introducing the notion of competence emphasized that the individuals’
competencies can be analyzed by segmenting the whole set of typical activities
performed by a person holding positions under recurrent work situations. With respect
to entrepreneurial competencies, the work situation is described based on the following
dimensions (Capaldo and Zollo, 2001):
.
behaviors and activities implemented by the entrepreneur when performing
his/her work;
.
observers, namely stakeholders who represent the network of clients/customers
and declare their expectations on the outcomes of the activities performed by the
entrepreneur;
.
objectives, i.e. the targets the entrepreneur is trying to achieve under a specific
situation; and
.
resources involved.
The foregoing showed that the concept entrepreneurial learning is described

differently in literatures. Very often, entrepreneurial learning is often described as a
continuous process that facilitates the development of necessary knowledge for being
alert and act on opportunities (Ronstadt, 1988; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000;
Corbett, 2002) and effective in starting up and managing new ventures (Kolb, 1984;
Starr and Bygrave, 1992; Aldrich, 1999; Shepherd et al., 2000). The basic assumption
underlying entrepreneurial learning is that this newly acquired knowledge will lead to
changes in organizational behavior intended to increase performance. Thus, behavioral
change is the link between entrepreneurial learning and consequential firm
performance. However, the development of knowledge does not necessarily lead to a
change in behavior. For this reason, some definitions require behavioral change as a Operational
necessary condition to learning (Fiol and Lyles, 1985). efficiency and
Fiol and Lyles (1985) attempted to describe entrepreneurial learning as “the
development of insights, knowledge, and associations between past actions, the growth
effectiveness of those actions, and future actions”. In essence, they describe
entrepreneurial learning as an organizational function involving the generation of
knowledge as the result of observing past actions and outcomes. This knowledge is 225
then applied to improve the quality of future decisions. It should also be pointed out
that behavior might change without gaining any new knowledge (Fiol and Lyles, 1985).
Therefore, the presence of both new knowledge and new behaviors could be considered
necessary antecedents to entrepreneurial learning at the firm level. This suggestion is
in line with Slater and Narver’s (1995) definition of “learning” as the development of
new knowledge or insights that have the ability to influence behavior.
The concept of entrepreneurial learning can be furthered by looking into the
relationship between entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial knowledge and
entrepreneurial competency. The starting point for understanding their relationship
is from the point of entrepreneurial experience, which is refer to as a direct observation
of, or participation in, events associated with development of knowledge and skills to
be alert and act on opportunities and being effective in starting and managing a new or
existing ventures. The practical wisdom resulting from what an entrepreneur has
encountered represents the knowledge derived from that particular experience (Reuber
et al., 1990). While, the behavioral change that is the outcome manifested in workplace
situations is the entrepreneurial competency. This line of reasoning relates to Kolb
(1984), who emphasizes two basic dimensions of experiential learning – acquisition
(grasping) and transformation and Politis (2005) of outcomes of entrepreneurial
learning.
In essence, the simple perception of prior experience is not sufficient for
entrepreneurial learning to happen, but requires that something is to be done with it.
Similarly, the acquisition of knowledge alone cannot represent learning, it is when the
acquired knowledge and/or skills is expressed in form of competency either in
recognizing opportunities or effectiveness in starting and managing new or existing
businesses that entrepreneurial learning has actually takes place. Therefore, to gauge
the impact of entrepreneurial experience (e.g. participation in entrepreneurship
programs) on performance is by recognizing the outcome of the knowledge gained (e.g.
the competence in entrepreneur-managerial practice) from the experience. This is the
direction of thought in this study. The owner-managers of small businesses who gain
experience through participation in entrepreneurship programs are more competent in
business management, exhibit better managerial practices than small businesses
whose owner-managers do not have such entrepreneurial experience and thus perform
better.
Conceptual framework
To organize the various arguments and reflections on the process of entrepreneurial
learning – firm’s performance that have been found in the literature, a conceptual
framework was developed to advance our understanding of the process and
comprehension of the present line of enquiry. The starting point for proper analyzing
of the impact of participation or exposure of owner-managers of small businesses to
JEC entrepreneurship programs on a firm’s performance indicator (e.g. operational
1,3 efficiency and growth) is the state of entrepreneurial experience. This later transforms
into experiential acquired knowledge, then entrepreneurial competence manifested in
form of superior managerial practice, attributes, behavior and so on in the workplace.
Figure 1 shown the conceptual framework.
Entrepreneurial learning is presented as an experiential process where the personal
226 experience of an entrepreneur is transformed into knowledge, while, competency is an
indicator of acquisition and grasping of knowledge. Thus, entrepreneurial experiences
do not directly lead to acquisition of entrepreneurial knowledge, rather, the gaining of

new experiences and the development of new knowledge that leads to change in
behavior (Kolb, 1984; Boyatzis, 1982). Hence, the simple perception of prior experience
is not sufficient for entrepreneurial learning to happen, but require that something
must be done with it. Similarly, transformation alone cannot represent learning, for
there must be something to be transformed, some state or experience that is being
acted upon: learning actually takes place in the real term, when there is a change in
behavior. This is in line with the four phases of Kolb (1984) model of entrepreneurial
learning process of in which entrepreneurs develop knowledge through four distinctive
learning abilities: experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting (Bailey, 1986;
Johannisson et al., 1998).
However, this conceptual model goes further to recognize the complexity in the
experiential learning process of an entrepreneur because the process of entrepreneurial
learning does not necessarily follow a predetermined sequence of steps, rather a
complex process where entrepreneurs transform experience into knowledge in
disparate ways.
The transformation process of experience has two distinctive forms – exploitation
and exploration – depending on how entrepreneurs transform their experiences into
knowledge (Minniti and Bygrave, 2001). The entrepreneurs may choose actions that
replicated or closely related to the ones they have already taken, thereby exploiting
their pre-existing knowledge or choose new actions that are distinct from the ones that
they have already taken. This line of reasoning is in accordance with March’s (1991)
ideas on the trade-offs between exploitation and exploration in organizational learning.
Exploitation concerns the utilization of what is already known, implying that
individuals learn from experience by utilizing the knowledge of old certainties. This
includes such things as refinement, routine, and implementation of knowledge.
Exploitation is thus about creating reliability in experience, which means that stable
behavior becomes the dominant state of the learner (Holmqvist, 2000).
This medium of transforming an experience into knowledge is in contrast to
exploration, which is about creating variety in an experience resulting in a change in
behavior. Exploration means that individuals learn from experiences by exploring new
possibilities including issues such as variation, experimentation, discovery, and
innovation. According to March (1991), both ways of transforming an experience into
knowledge are essential to sustain learning, but they compete for scarce resources. For
instance, individuals who are engaged in exploration to the exclusion of exploitation
are likely to find that they suffer the cost of experimentation without gaining many of
its benefits. The focus on exploration may result in too many immatured ideas and too
little distinctive competence. Likewise, individuals engaging in exploitation to the
Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial

Firm’s Performance
Experience Knowledge Competency
Experiential Events:
Opportunities recognition, Manifestation of the acquired Superior performance (e.g.
- Start-up, grasping and management of entrepreneurial knowledge in
- Management and higher profit, higher growth
new or existing ventures skills workplace situation (e.g. superior in asset, employee, salesetc.)
- Industry-specific repository in the entrepreneur managerial practices, attributes,
- experiences (e.g. and in the firm. behaviour etc.)
Previous business experience,
career experience and Entre-
preneurial Training/Programs
experience.
Transformation process Manifestation Process

- Fundamental, new, superior
— Exploration process, products and practices
— Exploitation - Constant repetitive demonstration

resulted into better way of doing
things
Experiential Entrepreneurial Learning Process

Operational
experience to performance
linking entrepreneurial
A conceptual framework
growth
Figure 1.
efficiency and
227
JEC exclusion of exploration are likely to find themselves trapped in sub-optimal stable
1,3 equilibrium.
The returns to exploitation are more certain, closer in time and closer in space than
are the returns to exploration (March, 1991). In contrast, exploration is associated with
substantial success as well as failure implying a larger performance variation. Based
on this argument, it can be concluded that maintaining an appropriate balance between
228 exploration and exploitation is a primary concern for survival and prosperity (March,
1991), as the exploitation of commercially successful new ideas provides the resources
to support new exploration (Mintzberg and Waters, 1982). However, the optimal mix of
exploration and exploitation is complex and hard to specify, because it is easy to
become trapped into dynamics of accelerating exploration or exploitation (Levinthal
and March, 1993).
Westhead and Wright (1998), Hall (1995), Katz (1994) and MacMillan (1986)
suggested that entrepreneurs that are highly explorative and alert, taking a broad
intuitive perspective that incorporates many different inputs at once, also tend to
become more effective in recognizing and acting on business opportunities (Corbett,
2002; Hills et al., 1997; Zietsma, 1999). On the other hand, effective handling of the
liabilities of newness requires the use of routine behaviors to handle conflicts with new
roles, responsibility, and development of stable links with important stakeholders
(Shepherd et al., 2000; Starr and Bygrave, 1992). This suggests that entrepreneurs that
put their primary focus on the exploitation of pre-existing knowledge, including such
things as refinement, habit, and implementation, seem to become more effective in
coping with the liabilities of newness and overcoming the traditional obstacles facing
business organization.
When the full potentials of the transformation modes are realized, then we have the
manifestation of knowledge. The knowledge manifests in forms depending on the
modes of transformation. When the transformation mode is exploitative, there is
dexterity in doing things, stable behaviors and definite organization behaviors, and
quick decision-making. Whereas in explorative mode, there are variations in behaviors,
the firm is innovative, proactive, and adopt new managerial practices based on new
knowledge and experimentation. As previously stated the two discourses complement
each other and one should not be emphasized at the expense of the other. It is when this
is manifested in form of outcomes: either as better management practices or as
entrepreneurial competencies that learning actually takes place. Firms with such
experience will thus perform better than those who never had such experience.
In the context of the present study (i.e. small businesses), where management is
personalized rather than being institutionalized, still the management of small
enterprises can improve their position vis-à-vis competitors by introducing
management practices that give consistency and viability to the administration of
the entire business. The ability of a business organization to respond positively and
aggressively to business opportunities and changing business conditions is affected by
entrepreneurial knowledge and competences of the owners/managers. For instance, a
good entrepreneur with poor managerial skills might be a hindrance to the profitability
and growth of the enterprise because he might prevent the enterprise from obtaining
the skills and methods required for growth and profitability. A gap is thus created
between the manager/owner’s perception of the situation and his own abilities on the
one hand and of the actual needs of the business on the other. It is this gap that
exposures of owners/managers of small businesses to entrepreneurship programs are Operational
meant to fill. efficiency and
The participation of owners/managers in entrepreneurship programs initiated a
process of entrepreneurial learning. Since, its source is external and not from repeated growth
of past actions, the likely transformation mode is explorative and the evidence that
entrepreneurial learning from this entrepreneurial experience is manifested in form of
better entrepreneur-managerial practices of owner/managers who participated in 229
entrepreneurship program, when compared to those who have not.
Therefore, the hypotheses are:
H1. Owners/managers small businesses that participated in entrepreneurship

programs exhibited better managerial practices than those that did not
participate in entrepreneurship training.
H2. Small business whose owners/managers participated in entrepreneurship
programs exhibited higher gross-margin than small businesses whose
entrepreneurs did not participate in entrepreneurship programs.
H3. Small business whose owners/managers participated in entrepreneurship
programs exhibited higher growth rate than small businesses whose
owners/managers did not participate in entrepreneurship programs.
Research design and methodology

The study is a cross-sectional, study of the dynamics of the performance of small
businesses vis-à-vis the exposure and non-exposure of owner-managers of small
businesses to entrepreneurship programs. The data for the study were from primary
and secondary sources. The primary data were collected through a well-structured
questionnaire administered on owners-managers of small businesses who are members
of National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSIs) Lagos chapter under a
non-contrived environment. Before the actual administration of the questionnaire, a
pilot-test of the questionnaire was carried out on entrepreneurs operating in Small
Scale Industrial Estate, Matori, Osodi, Lagos, Nigeria. This provided an opportunity to
test the face and content validity of the questionnaire.
The membership strength of NASSI, Lagos chapter was 224. All the members were
contacted through the NASSI’s Secretariat 62 of them responded and partake in the
study. The data collected were processed with SPSS version 14 for windows, both
descriptive (frequencies, percentages, mean, mode and ratio) and inferential statistics,
(parametric t-test) were employed in analyzing the collected data. The hypotheses were
tested at 95 percent confidence level (i.e. a ¼ 0.05).
Small scale businesses construct

The definition of small scale business vary across countries and regions and are
usually based on such criteria as number of employees, size of investments in plants
and machineries and volume of production or sales. The definition adopted by a
particular country is usually based on specific national context, e.g. the size-structure
of enterprises in the industry sector in which the business operates, and on the use and
objectives for which the definition is formulated, e.g. for policy and legal framework,
promotional and administrative purposes, etc. Inasmuch as the study is carried out in
JEC Nigeria, the preferred definition for this study is that of National Council of Industry
1,3 quoted in Udechukwu (2003):
. . . a small scale business is an enterprise with a labour size of 11-100 workers or a total cost
of not more than N50 million, including working capital but excluding cost of land.
However, for ease of classification, comparability, transferability and referencing of the
230 study to other scholars and users in other countries and regions of the world the labor
criterion of “a business with labour size of 11-100 workers” was adopted for the study.
The small businesses of interest were those who engaged in transformation or
processing activities. Therefore, it did not include those who were doing buying and
selling, rendering services like transportation, hoteliers, medical services, etc.
The entrepreneurship programs construct

The participation in entrepreneurship programs was the variable adopted to determine
whether the owners/managers were exposed to entrepreneurship program. Small
businesses owners/managers that participated in entrepreneurship development
programs would have gained some entrepreneur-managerial skills that distinguished
them from those who did not participated in entrepreneurship programs. Therefore, the
evidence that experiential learning has actually taken place would be a better
managerial practice by those who participated when compared with those who did not
participate. The better managerial practices of those who were exposed to
entrepreneurship programs over those who have not participated in
entrepreneurship would lead to higher gross-margin and growth rate.
Measurement of variables
The general objective measures adopted were:
.
monthly gross-margin; and
.
rate of growth of the businesses in total assets.
The monthly gross-margin. Hayes et al. (1988) define value-added as receipt from sales
of product less cost of purchased materials and services:
Monthly gross margin ¼ Sales revenue
2 Cost of purchased materials and services
This approach of predicting performance has the advantage of reducing the impact of
changes in material prices on productivity measure.
The growth rate. The growth rate was calculated, in accordance to Weinzimmer et al.
(1998); in which growth rate was calculated as present size minus previous size over
initial size. Mathematically, the expression is:
ðSt1 2 St0 Þ
g¼
St0
where g refers to the total growth rate during the whole period; St0 refers to the size at
the start of the period (i.e. total asset at time zero); St1 refers to the size at the end of the
period (total asset at time one).
Results and discussion Operational
Demographic properties of the sample population efficiency and
Of NASSI, 224 members were contacted for the study, however, only 62 (27.7 percent)
responded. About 45 (72.6 percent) out of the respondents had participated in growth
entrepreneurship program (Group 1), while, 17 (27.4 percent) had not participated in
any form of entrepreneurship programs (Group 2).
The two groups were similar in all respects less participation in entrepreneurship 231
program. Generally, the respondents were distributed along the following industries:
soap and cosmetics, machine fabrication, food and beverages, printing, drugs and
chemicals, leather works and rubber and plastics. In addition, the ages of the
businesses are less than 20 years, with majority of them between 5 and 14 years, while,
the ages of the owner-managers were between 15 and 50 years. Majority of the
owner-managers have post secondary education, specifically, polytechnic education.
Very few have postgraduate education. In terms of previous relevant experience, both
group members had experiential knowledge of apprenticeship, assisting relatives in
businesses, public work-experience and/or private business work-experience or
previously managed a business of their own. Therefore, the primary distinguishing
factor found in one but not in the other was the experience of participating in
entrepreneurship programs (Table I).
The comparison of managerial practices of owners/managers of small businesses that

participated in entrepreneurship program and those that did not have such
entrepreneurship experience
A comparison of the two groups:
(1) small businesses whose entrepreneurs have undergone entrepreneurship
training; and
(2) small businesses whose entrepreneurs were not show that small businesses
whose owner-managers have participated in entrepreneurship programs
exhibited managerial practices that are better than those whose
owner-managers were not.
Specifically:
(1) Small businesses whose entrepreneurs were exposed to entrepreneurship
programs have better recordkeeping and accounting practices in place in their
workplace. For examples:
.
About 67.4 percent of those who were exposed to entrepreneurship programs
employed double entry accounting method. Whereas, a few (25 percent) of
the small businesses, whose owner-managers were not exposed to
entrepreneurship programs adopted the double-entry approach to
bookkeeping.
.
The act of opening account for the business in Banks was a common practice
among the owner-managers in the two groups, but it was a more common
phenomenon among small businesses whose owner-managers had
participated in entrepreneurship development program (Table II).
(2) Small businesses whose entrepreneurs were exposed to entrepreneurship
programs were better in the management of inventory. For example: the
JEC
Participated Not participated
1,3 S. No. Parameters Frequency Valid (percent) Frequency Valid (percent)
A Types of industry
Soap and cosmetics 6 13.3 5 29.4
Machine fabrication 7 15.5 1 5.9
232 Food and beverages 13 29.0 3 17.6
Printing and cards production 4 8.9 2 11.8
Drugs and chemicals 7 15.5 4 23.5
Leather works 5 11.1 1 5.9

Rubber and plastics 3 6.7 1 5.9
Number of respondents 45 100 17 100
B Age of the business
Less than five years 7 15.9 3 20.0
5-9 years 21 47.7 5 33.3
10-14 years 12 27.3 6 40.0
15-19 years 4 9.1 1 6.7
No responsea 1 – 2 –
Number of respondents 45 17 100
C Age of the owner-managers
Less that 20 years 3 6.7 1 6.6
20-29 years 13 28.9 2 24.6
30-39 years 17 37.7 9 42.6
40-49 years 12 26.7 4 26.2
No responsea 0 – 1 –
D Level of education of owner-managers
Full secondary education 4 8.9 4 23.5
Ordinary national diploma 8 17.8 2 11.8
Higher national diploma 16 35.6 4 23.5
Bachelor degree 11 24.4 6 35.3
Postgraduate 06 13.3 1 5.9
E Cognate experience
Apprenticeship 3 6.7 1 5.9
Assisting relatives in running business 2 4.4 1 5.9
Public work experience 9 20.0 1 5.9
Private work experience 17 37.8 3 17.6
Private and public work experience 2 4.4 1 5.9
Manage one’s business 9 20.0 9 52.9
Table I. No previous experience 3 6.7 1 5.9
Characteristics of the Number of respondents 45 100 17 100
small businesses and the
owner managers Notes: aUser defines missing value; valid percent – missing value not included
majority (74.4 percent) of small businesses whose owner-managers had

participated in entrepreneurship programs established and kept to the firm’s
rule for stock level(s) of products in relation to volume, 10.3 percent have
determined the excess in stock but have not manage to reduce the stock level
and 15.4 percent were unconcerned with their stock level. Whereas, for small
businesses whose owner-managers did not participate in entrepreneurship
programs, 40 percent kept to the firm’s rule for stock level(s), 13.3 percent
Operational
Participation in EDP?
None Yes efficiency and
S. No. Parameters Frequency Valid (percent) Frequency Valid (percent) growth
A Double entry approach?
No 12 75.0 1,429 32.6
Yes 04 25.0 67.4 233
B Application of computer to record-keeping?
No 16 94.1 3,411 75.6

Yes 01 5.9 24.4
C Open business account in bank?
No 01 5.9 243 4.4
Yes 16 94.1 95.6
Number of respondents. 17 100 45 100 Table II.
D Separate business account from personal account? Participation in
No 09 52.9 11 24.4 entrepreneurship
Yes 08 47.1 34 75.6 development program
Number of respondents 17 100 45 100 and financial/record
keeping procedures in
Note: Valid percent – no response is excluded small business
determined the excess in stock but did not manage to reduce it, a very large
proportion (i.e. 46.7) showed unconcerned attitude to controlling their stock
(Table III).
(3) With respect to marketing intelligence, that is, being abreast of the activities of
competitors. Many (44.5 percent) of owner-managers of small scale businesses
who had undergone entrepreneurship development program were well aware of
their main competitors, they had good contact with them and follow their
developments. About 22 percent of them had brief knowledge of their
competitors and only 33.3 percent did not bother about the activities of their
competitors. However, only 5.9 percent of the owner-managers of small
businesses whose owners/managers were not exposed to entrepreneurship
programs were well aware of the development of their main competitors, 23.5
percent had brief knowledge of the activities of their competitors and majority
(70.6 percent) were not concern about the activities of their competitors
(Table IV (c)). Therefore, small businesses whose owners/managers
participated in entrepreneurship programs were more competitively
No participation Participated
Table III.
Parameters Frequency Valid (percent) Frequency Valid (percent)
Participation in
Unconcerned attitude to stock 7 46.7 6 15.4 entrepreneurship
Excess of stock, yet to be corrected 2 13.3 4 10.3 development program
Kept to firm’s stock level 6 40.0 29 74.3 and the attitude to stock
Total number of respondents 15 100 39 100 control of
owner-managers of small
Note: Valid percent – no response is excluded scale businesses
1,3
JEC
234
Table IV.
Participation in
scale businesses
entrepreneurship
and the competitive

performance of small
development programs
No participation Participated
S. No. Parameters Frequency Valid (percent) Frequency Valid (percent)
A. Marketing environment condition

The market is shrinking 3 18.8 6 14.3
Expansion of market is too high for our firm to fill up 3 18.8 7 16.7
Market growth allows for optimal expansion of our
firm 10 63.4 29 69.0
B. Penetration of new markets?
Well sell goods in the same old local market 13 76.5 27 60
We have penetrated new local markets 04 23.5 17 37.8
We have penetrated new local and foreign market 00 00.0 1 2.2
C. Knowledge of competitors?
Unconcerned with gathering information about
competitors 12 70.6 15 33.3
Brief knowledge of competitors 4 23.5 10 22.2
Good knowledge of competitors and watchful of
them 01 5.9 20 44.5
Total number of respondents 17 100 45 100
Note: Valid percent – no response is excluded
aggressive than small businesses whose owners/managers did not participate Operational
in entrepreneurship programs. efficiency and
(4) The exposure to entrepreneurship programs had little or no effect on growth
computerization of operation of the small businesses and the selling of their
product in distant or foreign markets. In the study, the application of computer
by small businesses in their operation is generally low. A low proportion (i.e.
24.4 percent) of those who participated applied computer programming in 235
recordkeeping and accounting. Notwithstanding, it is reasonably higher than
the 5.9 percent of those who were not exposed to entrepreneurship programs
(Table I section (b)). In addition, the exposure to entrepreneurship development
programs has not greatly influenced the entrepreneurs of small businesses to
actively be involved in selling their products in foreign markets (Table IV(b)).
From all of the above, the managerial practices of owners/managers of small

businesses that participated in entrepreneurship is better than managerial practices of
owners/managers that did not participate in entrepreneurship programs, particularly,
in recordkeeping and accounting, inventory control and management, marketing, and
competitive aggressiveness.
Comparison of the operating efficiency and growth rate of small businesses whose
owners/managers participated in entrepreneurship programs to those whose
owners/managers did not participate in entrepreneurship programs
The comparison of mean values of the total value added and the growth rate of small
businesses whose owner-managers participated in entrepreneurship programs to small
businesses whose entrepreneurs did not have such entrepreneurial experience showed
that:
.
The mean monthly gross-margin of 116,026.32NGN (i.e. 966.89US $)[1] and mean
growth rate of 108.32 percent for small scale business whose owner-managers
have participated in entrepreneurship development program were significantly
higher than mean monthly gross-margin of 79,666.67 NGN and growth rate
of 54.92 percent for small business whose owner-managers never participated
in EDP.
.
The gross-margin of firms whose owner-managers have participated in
entrepreneurship development programs is therefore about 50 percent higher
than those whose owners/managers have not participated in EDP (i.e. ratio
1.45:1). This is shown in Table V. A parametric t-test of the values of the
Gross-margin
Groups n Mean (NGN) Variance Ratio “t” value “t” sig.
Group one: did not participate

in entrepreneurship programs 15 79,666.67 3.06 £ 109 1.45 1.7841 0.003
Group two: participated
in entrepreneurship programs 38 116,026.32 8.03 £ 109 1
Table V.
Note: No responses are defined as missing values and not included in calculation Result of the t-test on H2
JEC gross-margin showed that the gross-margin of firms whose owners/managers
1,3 participated in entrepreneurship programs is significantly higher than the
gross-margin of firms whose owners/managers did not participate. Therefore,
H2 is hereby supported and upheld.
.
Further, their growth rate almost double (i.e. ratio 1.9:1) those whose
owner-managers did not participate in EDP. A t-test of the mean-values of
236 these two groups (participated in EDP and non-participation in EDP) supported
H3. That is, the growth rate of small businesses whose owners/managers were
exposed to entrepreneurship programs is significantly higher than small

businesses whose owners/managers did not participate in entrepreneurship
programs. This was exemplified by the significantly higher mean-values of
gross-margin, growth rate among small businesses, whose entrepreneurs have
participated in entrepreneurship development programs (Tables V and VI).
Conclusion
The exposure to entrepreneurship development had positive impact on the
performance of small businesses. By participating in entrepreneurship programs,
owners/managers of small businesses learnt better managerial skills of recordkeeping
and accounting of financial transactions, inventory management, marketing of
products, competitive aggressiveness and recognizing marketing opportunities.
However, the managerial practices of selling product in foreign market and utilization
of computers for managerial purpose were not common managerial practices among
the small businesses, even when exposed to entrepreneurship programs.
Participation in entrepreneurship programs equipped owners/managers of small
businesses with required managerial skill to achieve higher gross-margin and growth
rate. The growth rate of small businesses whose owners/managers participated in
entrepreneurship programs almost doubled (i.e. 1.9:1) those small businesses whose
owners/managers did not participate in entrepreneurship programs. Likewise, their
gross-margin, which is about 50 percent higher (1.45:1) than small businesses whose
owners/managers did not participate in entrepreneurship programs.
Therefore, to enhance the performance of small businesses, particularly, the
gross-margin and growth rate, it is of high importance to expose the owners/managers
of small businesses to entrepreneurship programs that concerns with the development
of entrepreneur-managerial skills like those identified in the study. Hopefully, this will
facilitate the transformation of small businesses to medium scale and hence to large
businesses and enhance the success of small businesses.
Growth rate
Groups n Mean Variance Ratio “t” value “t” sig.
Group one: did not participate in entrepreneurship

programs 15 0.5492 0.330 1.9 1.7789 0.001
Group two: participated in entrepreneurship
programs 38 1.0827 2.389 1
Table VI.
Result of the t-test on H3 Note: No responses are defined as missing values and not included in calculation
Note Operational
1. 120 NGN ¼ 1 US$. The relativity of the purchasing power of the monies to each other is not efficiency and
available. However, as at the time of the study, a litre of Petrol cost 65 NGN and a bottle (i.e.
35 cl) of Coca-cola cost 35 NGN. growth
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Corresponding author
Aderemi Ayinla Alarape can be contacted at: remialarape@yahoo.com; sikuola@oauife.edu.ng
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Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

indigenous technology and process skills.

The work-for-yourself program

The start- and improve-your-business programs

Work improvement for small enterprises

The foregoing showed that the concept entrepreneurial learning is described

do not directly lead to acquisition of entrepreneurial knowledge, rather, the gaining of

Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial

Transformation process Manifestation Process

— Exploitation - Constant repetitive demonstration

Experiential Entrepreneurial Learning Process

H1. Owners/managers small businesses that participated in entrepreneurship

Research design and methodology

Small scale businesses construct

The entrepreneurship programs construct

Monthly gross margin ¼ Sales revenue

2 Cost of purchased materials and services

The comparison of managerial practices of owners/managers of small businesses that

Leather works 5 11.1 1 5.9

majority (74.4 percent) of small businesses whose owner-managers had

No 16 94.1 3,411 75.6

and the competitive

A. Marketing environment condition

From all of the above, the managerial practices of owners/managers of small

Group one: did not participate

exposed to entrepreneurship programs is significantly higher than small

Group one: did not participate in entrepreneurship

Peterson, J.R. and Vesper, K. (Eds), Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, Babson

Further reading 239

Ibadan, pp. 231-4.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

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