The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance of youth entrepreneurs in Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality

Abstract

Youth unemployment is one of the key global challenges facing the world today. Statistically, the global youth unemployment rate is 13.1%. Youth entrepreneurship is viewed as a possible solution to youth unemployment. Interestingly, the world has adopted entrepreneurship as a strategic approach to facilitate economic participation among the youth. Youth entrepreneurship has gained importance in recent years in many countries, as a way of fostering employment opportunities, boosting economic competitiveness, and promoting local and regional development. Youth involvement in entrepreneurship assists in boosting their confidence, achieving economic independence, and alleviating poverty. Some researchers describe entrepreneurial orientation as innovativeness, pro-activeness, risk taking, and competitive aggressiveness. Other researchers see entrepreneurial orientation as being pushed or pulled into entrepreneurship. In this study, push and pull factors to become entrepreneurs were used to determine the entrepreneurial orientation of the respondents. The objectives of the study were to investigate whether there is a relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and the business performance of youth entrepreneurs in the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. A descriptive research design within a quantitative research approach was adopted using online surveys and physical administration of questionnaires. The study used a census method to sample 555 youth entrepreneurs in the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. A low response rate was achieved as only 96 respondents fully completed the questionnaires, which were used in the analysis. The collected data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The findings of this study revealed that push factors had a significant influence on the business performance of youth businesses in the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality; whereas there was no statistical evidence to suggest that pull factors predicted the business performance of youth businesses in the study area. The research found that entrepreneurship among young individuals is essential to enhancing young people’s economic development. The study discovered that most TMM youths were pulled in to starting their own businesses. The research also suggested that, EO could encourage TMM youth entrepreneurs to continue to become innovative, take- risk, be pro-active and competive aggressive in the businesses.