Managerial Constructs and Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Bauchi State, Nigeria

The study is cross-sectional in nature where data were collected from the population of the study using an adapted survey questionnaire and analyzed to report the finding at a point in time. Thus, the study is not subjected to timeframe. The population of the study is the 545 SMEs in Bauchi State. This is the result of a Collaborative Survey by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and SMEDAN of 2012. It was obtained from Bauchi state Ministry of Commerce and it is the latest information the ministry has about the number of SMEs in the state. Therefore, the actual informants of study were 545 owner-managers of these SMEs. The finding suggests that achievement motivation, locus of control, need for dominance, passion for work and risk taking/aversion are important contributors to SMEs’ performance in Bauchi state. Therefore, this study concluded that possession of entrepreneurial characteristics by an SME owner-manager leads to higher SMEs’ performance in Bauchi state. Therefore, this study concluded that application of environmental scanning by owner-managers to a little extent leads to improved SMEs’ performance in the state.