ABSTRACT

Over the years, there has been rapid and steady decline in strategic and creative thinking, decline in proper decision making by entrepreneurs and the absence of the capacity of small business owners to both exploit opportunities innovatively and create competitive advantage for business sustainability. Hence, the broad objective of this study focused on effect of strategic entrepreneurship management on development of sustainable agro-allied small businesses in South – South, Nigeria, from 2000 to 2017, being the period under review. To achieve this, the study adopted a population of 11,673 and derived a returned usable sample of 487, being SMEs registered with the Akwa Ibom, Delta and Rivers State governments and operating within the Agricultural value chain. The cross-sectional survey was employed; the content, construct, convergence and discriminant validity were employed to validate the research instrument, while a Cronbach’s alpha value of .84 showed reliability and internal consistency of the questionnaire. The study employed the Ordinary Least Square regression statistical tools to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that, risk propensity, innovation and creativity, resource mobilisation capacity, knowledge management, strategic alliances and marketing strategy as indicators of strategic entrepreneurship management have significant effect on development of sustainable agro-allied small businesses in Nigeria. The study concluded that, the application of strategic entrepreneurship management practices and techniques will sustainably develop agro-allied small businesses in South-South Nigeria. It was therefore recommended that, small agro-allied businesses desirous of sustainable development should ensure effective business networking within the industry to enhance productivity, where they lack technological capacity; also for profitable product distribution and access to wider markets; and since the focus of the government is on agriculture as a viable means of diversifying the mono economic nature of Nigeria, concerted effort should be channelled towards incentivising participation to stimulate innovative and creative ideas to transform the agricultural sector into the theatre of technological innovations for sustainable development of small businesses.