Differences of Entrepreneurial Orientation in Terms of Entrepreneurial Motives of Small and Medium Enterprises in Kandy District

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the Differences in Entrepreneurial Orientation in terms of Entrepreneurial motives with special reference to small and medium enterprises in the Kandy district. Entrepreneurial motives were considered as the independent variable and Entrepreneurial Orientation was considered as the dependent variable. The researcher used two Entrepreneurial motives as Pull motives and Push Motives which include in a model developed by Ingrid Verheul in 2010 as the independent variables. This study empirically evaluated five Entrepreneurial Orientation dimensions: Innovativeness, Pro-activeness, Competitive Aggressiveness, Risk Taking and Autonomy. The data for the study was drawn from a field survey conducted among 100 SMEs owners selected using the sampling technique in the Kandy district. A questionnaire was used to collect the data from the SME owners. Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement on Five Point Likert Scale as the scaling method. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0. Mean Score and Standard Deviation were used for all the variables for univariate analysis and correlation coefficient was used for bivariate analysis. The hypotheses were tested using Correlation and regression analysis. The results indicated that most of the SME owners are entrepreneurial-oriented due to Pull motives than Push motives. Pull motives have a strong and positive correlation with Entrepreneurial orientation than Push motives and overall entrepreneurial motives. As the researchers call the pull motives positive motives of Entrepreneurship, it is proved that they positively affect entrepreneurship. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, motives, orientation, small and