The Effect of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Business Performance: A Comparative Study of Necessity and Opportunity Entrepreneurs by Gender | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article The Effect of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Business Performance: A Comparative Study of Necessity and Opportunity Entrepreneurs by Gender Jean Bosco Ndikubwimana, Alice Mukasekuru, Idrissa Ndizeye, Josephine Mutesi, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-73718/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Entrepreneurship is known, contribute to the economic growth locally as well as globally. To make entrepreneurship play its economic role, entrepreneurs are oriented by different factors and perform differently in their business. This lead the researchers to investigate the entrepreneurial orientation considering necessity and opportunity factors among women and men business owners and their owned businesses in Huye District. This was done to find out the effect of such orientation on their business performance and to examine the significance of cross-gender differences with regard to the variables under study. For achieving the above objectives; structured questionnaire and documentary review techniques were used to collect data. From total population of 1787 business owners identified from 11 sectors in Huye District, researchers sampled 327 respondents. Random and convenience sampling techniques were used. The results showed that both males and females are more opportunity oriented than necessity oriented. Study shows that business owned by males perform better than business owned by females regarding both financial and non-financial performance aspects. It was also found out that there are no significant differences in both levels of entrepreneurial orientation and business performance across gender. Correlation analysis revealed a significant relationship between entrepreneurial orientation of women and men business owners and their business performance. Based on these findings, it recommends that the Government of Rwanda (GoR) should focus training and sensitization for women to increase their involvement in business and improve the performance of existing women business owners. Improving entrepreneurship program by MINEDUC should also be given consideration especially at primary and secondary levels/educations to prepare potential entrepreneurs. Finance Entrepreneurial Orientation Women and Men Business Performance Full Text Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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