Towards establishing long term surviving small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa: An entrepreneurial approach

摘要

The question of why some businesses survive and others do not is still a central focus in entrepreneurship studies.?Considering that entrepreneurs/owner-managers are the key decision makers in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and have direct control over the day to day operations of their business, ensuring the long term survival of their businesses remains a crucial issue to them. The objective of this paper is to establish a unique set of entrepreneurial competencies (entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial characteristics and business practices) that can help entrepreneurs to create long term surviving SMEs. This study adopts the theoretical framework on achieving long term SME survival established by Neneh et al. (2011) and empirically tested the validity of their findings. The population for the study comprised of entrepreneurs in the SME sector in Bloemfontein, Botshabelo and Thaba’Nchu (Free State province in South Africa). The results corroborated with the theoretical assumptions established in the framework. The key finding was that all entrepreneurs who possessed all the entrepreneurial competencies had a very high probability of achieving long term SME survival. This study provides empirical evidence to endorse the theoretical framework for achieving long term SME survival. It is assumed that this study will act as a guide for business consultants and academics to gain a better understanding of the type of learning tools they need to adopt to take entrepreneurs through the learning process in order to ensure the long-term survival and sustainability of SMEs.