Abstract

• Entrepreneurial competencies play the critical role for sustaining, maintaining, and improving the performance of small and medium enterprises in an intensely competitive market as local small and medium enterprises offer job opportunities. The most prevalent kinds of entrepreneurial competencies comprise communication competencies, determination competencies, basic business competencies, strategic competencies, resource competencies, and industry specific knowledge. This study attempts to identify entrepreneurial competencies of small and medium enterprises, and to analyze the effects of entrepreneurial competencies on performance of small and medium enterprises. This study utilizes primary data from 40 owners of small and medium enterprises in 2023. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis are applied in this study. It is found that determination and basic business competencies are weakly correlated, however, communication competencies, strategic competencies, resource competencies, and industry specific knowledge are moderately correlated with performance. According to the findings, resource competencies and industry specific knowledge have significant and positive effects on performance of small and medium enterprises. Other kinds of entrepreneurial competencies do not have significant effect on the performance of SMEs. Among six entrepreneurial competencies included in this study, it is found that the resource competency has the most significant effect on performance of small and medium enterprises.