Business owner’s culture orientation and small and medium-size entriprise (smes) growth: a liberian case study
Keywords:
Africa, Firm growth, emerging economies, entrepreneurship, Liberia, Culture, small and medium-sized enterprises, SSBMAbstract
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This study's primary purpose was to determine how business owners' culture orientations influence Small and Medium-size Enterprises Growth in Liberia. We put forward six hypotheses; corresponding to six of the nine cultural orientations indicated by the GLOBE Study. They are Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, In group Collectivism, Assertiveness, Humane Orientation, and Future Orientation (House et al., 2004). We hypothesized that all of the cultural orientations mentioned above, except uncertainty avoidance, leads to higher growth among SMEs.
Design/methodology/ approach: This study uses a quantitative method to test various hypotheses regarding the link between business owners' cultural orientation and firm growth. The author specifically hypothesized that specific cultural orientations do impact the growth of SMEs in Liberia. This study uses data collected from 207 entrepreneurs representing the SMEs sector from two different counties in Liberia. The researcher used various statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and regression analysis to analyze the data.
Findings: The results show that Power Distance, Collectivism, and Future Orientations lead to higher sales growth among Small and Medium Size Enterprises in Liberia. However, the researcher failed to show that Uncertainty Avoidance among business owners negatively impact sales growth among SMEs in Liberia. The researcher also failed to prove that Humane orientation among business owners leads to higher sales growth among Liberia SMEs. Finally, the researcher found no evidence that supports the theory that Assertiveness orientation leads to higher sales growth among SMEs in Liberia.
Research limitation: This study uses a non-probability sampling method. Which means that the extent to which findings from this study can be generalized to the rest of the entrepreneurs in Liberia is very limited.
