Assessing SMEs’ Sustainable Growth through Entrepreneurs’ Ability and Entrepreneurial Orientation: An Insight into SMEs in Côte d’Ivoire
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is competently written and I particularly enjoyed reviewing it.
Still, there are several – mainly conceptual- issues which have to be given an answer by the authors:
1) Entrepreneurial orientation is a well-established concept in entrepreneurship literature. For decades, it comprises 5 dimensions - innovation, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy. This is mentioned in the manuscript, still, I do not understand why the authors choose the initial concept belonging to Miller. This had to be explained to the readers.
2) I consider inappropriate lack of generalization. Even though the study was performed in Cote d’Ivoire, still the hypothesis does not have to be that specific. So, for instance, instead of
H1: The growth of an Ivorian SME is positively related to the creativity ability of its owner, it will be better:
H1: The growth of an SME is positively related to the creativity ability of its owner.
3) The authors are using, for SME Growth, 2 dimensions: financial growth and innovation growth. Still, in the model (table 1), it is only Innovation, and not Innovation growth, like in hypotheses formulation.
4) Figure 1 – SME Growth, not Growt. The Control variables are not adequately presented.
5) Figure 1 – Title is incorrect. Entrepreneurial Orientation does not have a regulatory role but acts as a moderator.
6) Table 1. I do not see the reason for such a classification of SMEs. The authors included micro in small, but for analysis, there should be three clusters: 1-9, 1-49, 50-249. Why 1-9, 1-40 (????) – the first is included in second, the second does not cover 40-49.
7) Table 2 has no meaning. I’ve never seen such a description of the measurement scale. The authors (probably) are describing the sources for each item, but this is not a measurement scale. What is the reason to use such a diverse range of sources?
Author Response
Point 1:
Entrepreneurial orientation is a well-established concept in entrepreneurship literature. For decades, it comprises 5 dimensions - innovation, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy. This is mentioned in the manuscript, still, I do not understand why the authors choose the initial concept belonging to Miller. This had to be explained to the readers.
Response 1:
Based on your comments, we have tried to explain why we chose innovativeness, proactiveness and risk tendency (among five dimensions) as the EO dimensions for this study. The content has been enriched with the following explanation:
The topic of EO has been extensively discussed over the past decades. However, given the broadness of the concept, it admittedly describes EO in terms of dimensions (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). Lumpkin and Dess (1996) have defined five dimensions of EO, namely innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy. However, since the choice of dimensions for scrutiny depends on the objective of studies (Welter and Smallborne, 2011), the consideration of any EO dimension is accepted by research specialists (Nicoletta, 2018) Hence, numerous researchers (Anlesinya et al., 2015; Miller, 1983; Nicoletta, 2018) have restricted their studies to the most used EO dimensions, namely innovativeness, proactiveness and risk trend.
Point 2:
I consider inappropriate lack of generalization. Even though the study was performed in Cote d’Ivoire, still the hypothesis does not have to be that specific. So, for instance, instead of
H1: The growth of an Ivorian SME is positively related to the creativity ability of its owner,
it will be better:
H1: The growth of an SME is positively related to the creativity ability of its owner.
Response 2:
Yes, you are right. Since these assertions are relatively well-known in the field of SMEs, the hypotheses can be generalized. I made changes accordingly.
Point 3:
The authors are using, for SME Growth, 2 dimensions: financial growth and innovation growth. Still, in the model (table 1), it is only Innovation, and not Innovation growth, like in hypotheses formulation.
Response 3:
We have checked the whole document, and tried to correct the errors (see highlighted changes).
Point 4:
Figure 1 – SME Growth, not “Growt”. The Control variables are not adequately presented.
Response 4:
Beyond the correction of the word ‘growth’, all the grammar, spelling and punctuation
have been checked again in order to confirm the correctness of the sentences, and to improve
the English level of the whole document.
Point 5:
Figure 1 – Title is incorrect. Entrepreneurial Orientation does not have a regulatory role but acts as a moderator.
Response 5:
We are most grateful to you for your precision. This small change will improve the quality of the language in this paper because most readers are interested in the research model and its title.
Point 6:
Table 1. I do not see the reason for such a classification of SMEs. The authors included micro in small, but for analysis, there should be three clusters: 1-9, 1-49, 50-249. Why 1-9, 1-40 (????) – the first is included in second, the second does not cover 40-49.
Response 6:
We wrote 1–40 (instead of 10–49) by mistake. The error has been corrected.
-Microenterprise (MIC): 1–9 employees
-Small enterprise (SMA): 10–49 employees
-Medium-sized enterprise (MED): 50–199 employees.
Point 7:
Table 2 has no meaning. I’ve never seen such a description of the measurement scale. The authors (probably) are describing the sources for each item, but this is not a measurement scale. What is the reason to use such a diverse range of sources?
Response 7:
Your comment has prompted us to read more papers, and we realized that there is no need to use such a diverse range of sources.
Based on your comments, the content and title of Table 2 have been revised and reorganized to meet the objectives of the study (see highlighted changes).
The new formulation of the title is:
Table 2. Sources of hypotheses on the relationship between entrepreneurial factors and SME’s sustainable growth (SMESG).
In short, based on your comments and suggestions, we have tried to:
Improve the English level of the whole document by checking and editing the grammar, spelling and punctuation in order to ensure the correctness of the sentences. Reorganize and improve the content of section 2 (literature review) in order to improve the quality and readability of the paper. Generalize the hypotheses, and reduce the number of hypotheses. Enrich the content of the analysis and to clearly present the results. Significantly improve the presentation of results by adjusting the content of tables to meet the objectives of the study. Explain why our findings are different from some prior studies. This part represents a key potential contribution of the study.
We hope that you will find these changes and responses convincing. The new considerations and major revisions should better show the paper's rationale.
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper examines how entrepreneurial ability impacts the growth of small and medium sized enterprises in the Cote d’Ivoire. You argue that increases in ability will lead to increased growth. They further posit that entrepreneurial orientation will moderate this relationship. The paper finds support for most of their hypotheses. I hope the following comments can help in further developing the paper.
Specific Comments:
Introduction:
I think the introduction can be streamlined to better set up the paper and its contribution. I believe you should remove some of the citations (the paper seems overly cited in the introduction). The 3 paragraphs on page 2 showing the motivation for the study can be streamlined and shortened. Much of this might be better suited to the discussion section.
Literature Review
Overall, I think most of this section is solid. I believe the lit review should start with section 2.2 (changing its numbering to 2.1), and then move what was Section 2.1 into a new combined Section 2.2 (which was Section 2.3). The new Section 2.2 could be titled: ‘SMEs & Sustainable Growth’. I think this would improve the overall flow of the section.
Hypotheses
I do not think you need to include Hypothesis 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. I would keep it to separate hypotheses (H1a/H1b, H2a/H2b, etc.). What do you mean by innovation growth? This isn’t explained and should be (maybe in the liter review section described as the new Section 2.2—see above) I think each of your hypotheses needs a bit more development. I think financial growth and innovation growth don’t necessarily come from the same set of abilities, and I think the differences should be highlighted more. I do not see what is specific to Cote d’Ivoire with your hypothesis development. Each of your hypotheses (H1 through H7) is specific to this country, but none of your theorizing is specific to this country. I believe you should either generalize your hypotheses or be specific in the theorizing about why the relationship is different in Cote d’Ivoire.
Measures/Methods/Data
I was a bit confused with Figure 1. Your theorizing is about 2 distinct types of SME growth, but your figure indicates that innovation and financial achievement lead to growth. I think it would be best to re-label to figure to better match your hypotheses. I do not understand how you create the variables you use in the study. I understand you ran a survey, but how did you combine the results to form your dependent and independent variables? Was this done by simple averages of the measures, or some other technique? More details are needed. I am not sure your methods are suitable for your data. With your use of surveys, I think you should use structural equation modeling to evaluate your results. Many of your measures seem like latent variable for larger constructs, and this seems to indicate using SEM. Overall, I think this would improve the validity of your results. You already have a model designed (Figure 1), so I would just input this model into an SEM framework to see if your results are the same. If you continue to use hierarchical regression analysis, then I would like to see a full model with all of your variables included. It could be the case that one (or more) of your variables would outweigh the contribution from other (similar) variables. A full model with all variables would allow the reader to see that each of your hypotheses were confirmed (or not confirmed) when everything is included (assuring that the models are properly specified).
Author Response
Point 1: Introduction:
I think the introduction can be streamlined to better set up the paper and its contribution.
I believe you should remove some of the citations (the paper seems overly cited in the introduction). The 3 paragraphs on page 2 showing the motivation for the study can be streamlined and shortened. Much of this might be better suited to the discussion section.
Response 1:
We are most grateful to you for your fastidiousness.
Based on your comment and suggestions, we have tried to modify the content of the introduction, while focusing on the paper’s contribution and objectives.
We removed some less necessary citations and paragraphs, and enriched the discussion (section 5.1) with some explanations removed from the introduction (i.e., the 3 paragraphs you mentioned).
Point 2: Literature Review
Overall, I think most of this section is solid. I believe the lit review should start with section 2.2 (changing its numbering to 2.1), and then move what was Section 2.1 into a new combined Section 2.2 (which was Section 2.3). The new Section 2.2 could be titled: ‘SMEs & Sustainable Growth’. I think this would improve the overall flow of the section.
Response 2:
Based on your comments and suggestions, section 2 (literature review) has been reorganized as follow:
2. Literature Relating to SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Business Growth
2.1. Entrepreneurship and Its Key Concepts
2.1.1. Entrepreneurs’ Ability (EA) and Its Components
2.1.2. Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and Its Dimensions
2.2. SMEs and Sustainable Growth
2.2.1. Concept and Importance of SMEs
2.2.2. Concept of Business Growth
2.2.3 SME Sustainable Growth (SMESG) and Its Measurements
Point 3: Hypotheses
3-a) I do not think you need to include Hypothesis 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. I would keep it to separate hypotheses (H1a/H1b, H2a/H2b, etc.).
Response 3-a:
Beyond the removal of Hypothesis 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, the content of hypotheses has been enriched.
3-b) What do you mean by innovation growth? This isn’t explained and should be (maybe in the liter review section described as the new Section 2.2—see above).
Response 3-b:
As you suggested, we have tried to explain and justify the choice of “financial growth” and “innovation growth” as the dimensions of the dependent variable (SME growth). This explanation can be seen in Sub-section 2.2.2. (Concept of Business Growth).
3-c) I think each of your hypotheses needs a bit more development.
Response 3-c:
The hypotheses have been developed further (see highlighted changes).
3-d) I think financial growth and innovation growth don’t necessarily come from the same set of abilities, and I think the differences should be highlighted more.
Response 3-d:
Our approach is as follows:
After explaining that “business growth measurements” should encompass both financial and innovation metrics, the two SMEG dimensions considered in this study are “financial growth” and “innovation growth”.
Once it has been hypothesized that an independent variable (i.e., EA) predicts the dependent variable (i.e., SMEG), two sub-hypotheses were derived from the consideration of two growth measurements, namely innovation growth and financial growth.
We believe that an upcoming study could venture into a deep lit review on the concept of business growth to highlight the difference in hypotheses for each dimension of growth (e.g., financial growth and innovation growth).
3-e) I do not see what is specific to Cote d’Ivoire with your hypothesis development. Each of your hypotheses (H1 through H7) is specific to this country, but none of your theorizing is specific to this country. I believe you should either generalize your hypotheses or be specific in the theorizing about why the relationship is different in Cote d’Ivoire.
Response 3-e:
Yes, you are right. Since none of our theories are specific to Cote d’Ivoire, the hypotheses should be generalized. Moreover, these assertions are relatively well-known in the field of SMEs. We made changes accordingly.
Point 4: Measures/Methods/Data
4-a) I was a bit confused with Figure 1. Your theorizing is about 2 distinct types of SME growth, but your figure indicates that innovation and financial achievement lead to growth. I think it would be best to re-label to figure to better match your hypotheses.
Response 4-a
We have checked the whole document, and tried to correct the errors (see highlighted changes).
We are most grateful to you for your precision. This small change will improve the quality of the paper because most readers are interested in the research model and its correctness.
4-b) I do not understand how you create the variables you use in the study. I understand you ran a survey, but how did you combine the results to form your dependent and independent variables? Was this done by simple averages of the measures, or some other technique? More details are needed. I am not sure your methods are suitable for your data.
Response 4-b:
After inspecting the reliability of each question (based on Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients) and factor analysis (construct validity, principal component analysis, and rotated component analysis), we created each independent and dependent variable (with the cleaned dataset) by simple averages of the measures. We have provided this explanation in Section 3.3.3. (Statistic Methods of Data Analysis).
By looking at the result of principal component analysis (PCA), the three criteria, namely Kaiser’s criteria (all eigenvalue > 1.0) [Kaiser, 1974], cumulative percentage of variance (cumulative % =98.5 > 60%), and percentage of prime factor (% of variance of the first component > 20%) [Reckase, 1979], were met. Five components are extracted from the principal component analysis (PCA), meaning that the EA can be divided into six dimensions.
After multiple adjustments, the rotated component matrix for EA was generated from SPSS. This table displays the items and factor loadings for all five components. The result was meaningful since many items were loaded on each factor (Henson & Roberts, 2006). In addition, since all the coefficients (items loadings) were higher than 0.7, we can – based on the judgment of Hair et al. (2010) –conclude that the result is credible.
Although other techniques could be applied, we used the “simple averages method” to reach the objectives of the study (that is, the recognition of EAs that significantly affect SMESG in a middle-income economy like Cote d’Ivoire).
After the recognition of EAs affecting SMESG (through statistical tests), our upcoming researches will target advanced methods and techniques in assessing these EAs. For instance, each EA dimension could be investigated in order to estimate the extent to which and how each of its measurements affect SMESG in Cote d’Ivoire. We have mentioned this orientation in Section 5.3. (Research Gaps and Direction of Further Studies).
4-c) With your use of surveys, I think you should use structural equation modeling to evaluate your results. Many of your measures seem like latent variable for larger constructs, and this seems to indicate using SEM. Overall, I think this would improve the validity of your results. You already have a model designed (Figure 1), so I would just input this model into an SEM framework to see if your results are the same. If you continue to use hierarchical regression analysis, then I would like to see a full model with all of your variables included. It could be the case that one (or more) of your variables would outweigh the contribution from other (similar) variables. A full model with all variables would allow the reader to see that each of your hypotheses were confirmed (or not confirmed) when everything is included (assuring that the models are properly specified).
Response 4-c:
Based on your suggestions, we have tried to enrich the content of the Analysis section (see Section 4.3.1. Impact of EA on SME Financial Growth) by providing the objectives of full-model regressions and by analyzing their results.
In order to identify the most effective predictors (EAs), a hierarchical regression –aiming at confirming or rejecting the hypotheses when all IVs are included –was performed for each SMESG dimension. The results of these regressions (in full models) were in line with the findings from each standard regression (in single models).
For the DV “financial growth”, the regression coefficient (β) of creativity ability, opportunity detection ability, risk-control ability and relationship ability was positive and statistically significant (p<0.05); hence these abilities are effective predictors. However, β of “learning” was not significant, meaning that the learning ability of entrepreneurs does not affect the SME financial growth.
As for the DV “innovation growth”, the regression coefficient (β) of opportunity detection ability, risk-control ability and relationship ability was positive and statistically significant (p<0.05); hence these abilities are effective predictors. However, β of “learning” and “creativity” was not significant, meaning that neither learning ability nor creativity ability of entrepreneurs affect SME innovation growth.
Moreover, according to the p-value of F-statistic, the full models are good fits for the data (p<0.01).
Point 5: Discussion/Conclusion
In section 5.1.2, you claim to find some results that do not match prior theory. You should explain what these are and why your findings are different from what was shown in the past. Was it something specific to your context? Is our understanding of these relationships missing something?
This, to me, is a key potential contribution to your work. Overall, in this section I want to see more about what you learned that is adding to our knowledge of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial ability, and entrepreneurial orientation.
I would also like the specific context mentioned more, especially to compare/contrast results from studies of other areas.
Response 5:
Yes, some of our results (i.e., learning ability of Ivorian entrepreneurs do not predict SMESG) contradict the results of a number of earlier researchers.
In Section 5.1.2(Which Entrepreneurs’ Abilities Are Affecting the Growth of Ivorian SMEs?), we have tried to explain why our findings are different from some prior studies. We have explained the reason why the learning ability of Ivorian entrepreneurs does not predict SMESG. We have also cited some studies whose results are aligned with the findings of this study.
This part represents a key potential contribution of our work.
In short, based on your comments and suggestions, we have tried to:
Enrich the content of the introduction by:a- Identifying the gaps that the literature does not deal with;
b- Formulating the research question and objectives based on the gaps.
c- Presenting the objectives of the study and its contribution;
d- Removing some less necessary citations and paragraphs.
Reorganize and improve the content of section 2 (literature review) in order to improve the quality and readability of the paper. Develop the hypotheses a bit more, and reduce the number of hypotheses. Better describe methods in the paper, and to explain why our methods are suitable for data. Enrich the content of the analysis and to clearly present the results. Significantly improve the presentation of results by adjusting the content of tables to meet the objectives of the study. Explain why our findings are different from some prior studies. This part represents a key potential contribution of the study.We hope that you will find these changes and responses convincing. The new considerations and major revisions should better show the paper's rationale.
Reviewer 3 Report
It was a pleasure to read your article. I think the paper reaches an good level even though I have some comments:
In the first part of the article in the literature review you mentioned relatively known issues in the field of SMEs.
The result part is quite complicated, I would say overexposed. A relatively large number of hypotheses are mentioned which could be reduced. This is related to their evaluation. Personally, I prefer that the hypothesis can be confirmed or rejected.
Author Response
Point 1:
In the first part of the article in the literature review you mentioned relatively known issues in the field of SMEs.
Response 1:
We are most grateful to you for your precision. Based on your observation, we have tried to improve the quality and readability of the literature review.
Section 2 (literature review) has been reorganised as follows:
2. Literature Relating to SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Business Growth
2.1. Entrepreneurship and Its Key Concepts
2.1.1. Entrepreneurs’ Ability (EA) and Its Components
2.1.2. Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and Its Dimensions
2.2. SMEs and Sustainable Growth
2.2.1. Concept and Importance of SMEs
2.2.2. Concept of Business Growth
2.2.3 SME Sustainable Growth (SMESG) and Its Measurements
Point 2:
The result part is quite complicated, I would say overexposed. A relatively large number of hypotheses are mentioned which could be reduced. This is related to their evaluation. Personally, I prefer that the hypothesis can be confirmed or rejected.
Response 2:
Beyond the removal of Hypothesis 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, the content of hypotheses has been enriched.
Moreover, we have adopted the word “confirmed or rejected” (instead of Yes or No).This small change will improve the quality of the language in this paper because most readers are interested in hypothesis testing results.
In short, based on your comments and suggestions, we have tried to:
Reorganize and improve the content of section 2 (literature review) in order to improve the quality and readability of the paper. Develop the hypotheses a bit more, and reduce the number of hypotheses. Enrich the content of the analysis and to clearly present the results.
We hope that you will find these changes and responses convincing. The new considerations and major revisions should better show the paper's rationale.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for answering the majority of my concerns with your manuscript.
