ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATIVENESS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION OF SMES PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIA

A major indicator of economic development in every country is growth in business and entrepreneurship activities. SMEs in Nigeria face mammoth burdens as the nation participates more into the world economy. Influences, impacting as both external and internal factors, can be found in business environment, such as globalization, technological innovation and demographic and social change, as well as the level of technology deployed, innovative ability, financial support and entrepreneurship. The study assessed Impact of innovativeness and environment on performance of SMEs in north Central Nigeria. Using the triangulative method via multiage sampling 282 study participant were selected. Data obtained were analysed quantitatively and qualitative. The paper argued that; innovativeness for brand loyalty shows that the enterprises support creative ideas apart from the existing process and procedure with an average mean of 2.73. the enterprise is maintaining the leading position in the industry by providing technology to satisfy both expressed and latent needs of the customers. This was accepted on the average mean of 3.05. findings from the hypothesis shows significant impact of environment on performance of SMEs (F= 8.410; P<0.05) and significant impact of innovativeness on performance of SMEs (F= 4.983; P><0.05). The study concludes that entrepreneurial orientation has a significant effect on performance of SMEs in Benue, Kogi and the Federal Capital Territory. From the findings, the following recommendations were made for policy makers as well Small and Medium enterprises. Entrepreneurship orientation and practical training which has been integrated into capacity building should be improved and promoted further to elicit the resilience in pro-activeness, risk-taking propensity and innovativeness needed by the entrepreneurs to survive the turbulent socioeconomic environment for improved productivity