Entrepreneurial Orientation in Exporter and NON-exporter SMEs

This research is a quantitative study which is conducted in fruits and vegetables SMEs of Tehran Province in Iran. The province of Tehran, capital of Iran, is selected mainly because of the most recent formal national statistics, published by Statistic Center of Iran (SCI), show that more than 27% of all SMEs in Iran are activating in this area. The purpose of this study is a comparison of entrepreneurial orientations in exporter and non-exporter SMEs. For the purpose of data collection, a structured questionnaire was designed and generated from 76 managers of SMEs (44 exporters and 32 non-exporters). The software ‘Statistical Package for the Social Sciences’ (SPSS 20) is used to analyze the data with the aim of assessing the difference between exporter and non-exporter SMEs by means of entrepreneurial orientations. The results of the survey show that all dimensions of Entrepreneurial Orientations in exporter and non-exporter are correlated and Pro-activeness, Autonomy and Competitive Aggressiveness among dimensions of entrepreneurial orientations have a significant difference between exporter and non-exporter SMEs.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurial Orientation , Exporter , Non-Exporter , SMEs , Iran