ENTREPRENUERIAL ORINETATION: PATHWAY TO FOSTERING STRATEGIC AGILITY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPISES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Small and Medium Scale-SMEs space is continuously undergoing extreme complications arising from multiplicities of factors such as changing government policies, inadequate capital, declining capacity, and managerial know-how to mention a few. Therefore, improve entrepreneurial orientation is a precondition to enhance the capability and skills of entrepreneurs.  This paper review entrepreneurial orientation as pathway to foster strategic agility of Small and Medium Scale-SMEs in Nigeria. To achieve the aforementioned objective, this paper review scholarly articles from multiple databases such as Web of Sciences, Science Direct, Scopus, Emerald, and Google Scholar to mention a few.  The notion of entrepreneurial orientation has become one of the most well-known concepts in entrepreneurship literature and has been recognized as a form of adaptive behaviour to cope with changing SMEs landscape. The paper noted that both entrepreneurial orientation and strategic agility signaled the basis of organisational resilience to cope with changing business dynamics and volatility. In particular, EO confers strong internal organisational configurations and practices to SMEs, to be more innovative and proactive as a basis of improving strategic agility. The study concluded that by developing the entrepreneurial competences, SMEs will be in a better position to develop capabilities to survive and flourish. Based on the findings, the paper recommends that to enhance strategic agility of SMEs, business managers must continuously improve their entrepreneur through strategic sensitivity, resource fluidity, and leadership unity so as to remain abreast and conversant with changing complications in the SMEs space.