Impact of personality traits of business owners on the growth of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria

The study revealed that one of the more significant roles of the growth of SMEs in a country is evident in the contribution it has towards the development of that economy. There is an immense link between the performance and growth of SMEs. If the business performance is low then the growth of SMEs will be affected. So many factors contribute to the SMEs’ growth and performance. The factors are categorized into two, they are: Internal factors and External Factors. The external factors have always been recognized as the main factor that affects the growth of SMEs. The internal factors which have been considered so far are competency, financial management and a host of others. The recent researches show that all internal factors are dependent on the attributes that a business owner possess which is referred to as the personality traits. The major concern of this project is to assess the impact of personality traits of business owners on the growth of SMEs and business performance. Four theories were utilized to elucidate on the various issues. The descriptive survey technique was utilized to gather vital information from respondents, making use of a questionnaire (via google form/ online survey). A multiple regression analysis was adopted to investigate the two hypotheses. The results showed that all the personality factors accounted for 46.5% of the variance in the growth of business (R2=.465, F (5, 54) = 9.37, p < .05) significantly. The results for the second one indicated that all the personality factors accounted for 49.1% of the variance in the business performance (R2=.491, F (5, 54) = 10.41, p < .05) significantly. This revealed that personality traits of business owners have a significant impact on the growth of SMEs and Business Performance