ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES IN JAPAN

This study seeks to enhance the understanding of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), Business Performance relationship framework in Japan. Drawing on key concepts from entrepreneurship theory, the study empirically investigated the relationship between EO dimensions with business performance indicators of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) operating in the manufacturing sector at Shizuoka Prefecture of Japan (SPJ). Three main dimensions of innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking were applied. Sales growth, employment growth, market share growth, and profit growth were used to predict business performance. Interviews and mail survey were main research instruments and regression analysiswas applied in order to determine the relationship among EO dimensions and business performance variables.Findings indicated that proactiveness, innovativeness, risk taking and overall EO have significant positive relationship with market share growth. Further, innovativenessand overall EO were positively and significantly related tosales growth and profit growth while positive significant relationship was shown between risk taking and employment growth.