The Eastern Cape Province has been cited as the second poorest province in South Africa. The impact of entrepreneurship on the economy, with respect to socio-economic development, has placed increased pressure on entrepreneurs to operate effectively. Moreover, entrepreneurs are required to adopt and adapt to leadership practices that lead to business success. Business success is largely dependent on the leader. The importance of this study may, thus, be attributed to the need for entrepreneurs to possess the necessary leadership attributes for the efficient running of a business. The primary objective of this study was to improve the success rate of entrepreneurs in the Eastern Cape Province. This was done by determining the impact of selected leadership attributes on the success of entrepreneurs. More specifically, this study investigated how the success of entrepreneurs is influenced by leadership attributes (the dependent variable), namely, leadership style, vision, networking, risk-taking and ethics (the independent variables). In order to achieve the research objectives, the researcher used the inferential statistical approach, specifically, hypothesis testing. The first step was to conduct a literature review on factors that influence entrepreneurs. This entailed the barriers to success, critical success factors, the impact of the SMME sector on the economy, as well as the selected leadership attributes. Secondly, the quantitative research method was used to assess the perceptions of entrepreneurs with regards to the influence of the leadership attributes on their businesses. This was done through an empirical survey, namely a self-administered questionnaire that was distributed to a sample of 100 entrepreneurs who are based in the Eastern Cape Province and have been operating for a minimum of three years. Out of the envisaged 100 respondents, 89 questionnaires were completed (89% response rate). The data obtained from the empirical survey was then analysed statistically and the descriptive statistics were presented by using graphs and tables. The results of the empirical survey revealed that although all the above-mentioned independent variables contribute towards increasing the success rate of entrepreneurs, networking and ethics exert the most significant influence. Based on the findings of the literature review and the results of the empirical survey, this study made recommendations on areas of improvement for entrepreneurs in order to increase their success rate. Suggestions were also made for possible future research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8920 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Mtshibe, Nomaswazi |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | xi, 147 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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