STRATEGIC ORIENTATION OF ENTREPRENEURS IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Abstract

Entrepreneurship contributes to the rapid industrial development and economic progress of any country. It deals with many uncertainties but looks forward to the future from the present. Broadly it can be described as a creative and innovative response to the environment. Thus entrepreneurs must identify the possibilities in the environment, which will offer them opportunities and act accordingly as a strategist in acquiring and deploying the resources, which in fact is a major challenge. This lies on the entrepreneur's distinctive competence and foresight. The nature of strategic planning and thinking, nature of organizational philosophy, environmental and industrial foresight, crafting strategies, identification of competitiveness and competitive edges, leadership and human orientation, ability to establish strategic controls and devices etc, facilitate the role of a person to be a strategic entrepreneur who performs well in all instances or just another business person who struggles for day today survival. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of personal and psychological, managerial and environmental factors towards strategic orientation of the SME entrepreneurs. The information was gathered through questionnaires distributed among seventy-five small and medium entrepreneurs, and out of these seventy-five, twenty entrepreneurs were randomly selected for interviews to clarify the issues arising from the quantifiable information and also to get an insight into the issues in hand.

Keywords; Entrepreneur, Environmental and Organizational Factors, Managerial Factors, Personal and Psychological Factors and Strategic Orientation

For full Paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk