European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2839 (Online) Vol.5, No.23, 2013 37 Are SME Owner-Managers Entrepreneurs? Evidence from Ghana Daniel M. Quaye and George Acheampong University of Ghana Business School, Legon-Ghana This research is financed by The University of Ghana Business School Research Fund, Legon Abstract This study seeks to examine whether SME owner-managers are entrepreneurs. This is a particularly essential question in light of the term ‘entrepreneur,’ being ‘loosely’ used in most entrepreneurial studies to refer to SME owner-managers. The study adopts Covin and Slevin’s entrepreneurial orientation concept. The concept presents a good scale (comprising risk-taking, innovativeness and proactiveness) for measuring an SME owner-manager’s entrepreneurial ability. Using a systematic sampling approach the study interviewed 300 SME owner mangers in Accra, Ghana in various sectors such as services, trade, manufacturing and agro-processing. The study found that SME owner-managers are not innovative and do not take risks although very proactive. Consequently, this study concludes that SME owner-managers are not entrepreneurially oriented and as such cannot be labelled as entrepreneurs. Appropriately, they should be labelled as businesspersons. Keywords: Entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneur, SME owner-manager, risk-taking, innovativeness and proactiveness. 1. Introduction This study is predicated on the belief that the term entrepreneur is applied to SME owner-managers in a way that does not reflect their enterprise initiatives. Thus in Ghana, any SME owner-operator is apt to be referred to as an entrepreneur. Thus the definition of an entrepreneur remains confusing and to an extent even controversial (Carland, Carland, & Stewart, 1996). Consequently, this study examines what constitutes an entrepreneur. In other words, what indicators can be assembled to define an entrepreneur thus allowing us to determine who among the SME community in Ghana fits the definition. Furthermore, this quest is pertinent in light of the fact that at least cursory observation of goods on the Ghanaian market does not seem to reflect entrepreneurialism among Ghanaian SME’s. An Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Report (2008) found that Ghana heavy relies on imported goods. The study found that the average percentage of processed food imports into Ghana between 1999-2006 was 73.92, while for the same period, the average processed wood products was 70.22 percent. In addition, the average for textiles and garments imports over the same period was 79.64 percent. Then again, the few Ghanaian made goods on the market, either lack standardization or overall quality or both. Also, theoretically there are several approaches that have evolved in defining entrepreneurship and ultimately who the entrepreneur is; and along with these approaches are its tensions. There have been two popular schools of thought used to define entrepreneurs. These are the Schumpeterian and the Kirznerian schools of thought (Roininen & Ylinenpää, 2009). Some authors have also suggested Lachman’s approach to defining the entrepreneurial approach (Chiles, Bluedorn, & Gupta, 2007). These tensions have given rise to the improper use of the word entrepreneur to describe all manner of persons. One of the most frequently used without justification is the implicit reference to SME owner-managers as entrepreneurs (Bouchard & Basso, 2011; Fernández-Ortiz & Lombardo, 2009; Javalgi & Todd, 2011; Serrasqueiro & Nunes, 2012). This assertion may be due to the fact that the Kirznerian school of thought assumes people who take advantage of market inequalities to be entrepreneurs. However, there are no studies to support this assertion. The juxtaposition of the common reference in most entrepreneurial studies to SME owner-managers as entrepreneurs and the prevailing difficulty of Ghanaian SME owner-managers to produce basic quality goods, begs us to pose an eminent question, are Ghanaian SME owner-managers truly entrepreneurial? A confirmation or otherwise of this question will have significant implications for entrepreneurship research. This paper is organized as follows; section 2 deals with literature review, there we briefly review the few existing seminal literature that attempts to define the term entrepreneur. In section 3, the term entrepreneurial orientation and its accompanying indicators are outlined. The study’s approach and sampling techniques as well as the analysis and interpretation of the data are discussed in section 4. Section 5 presents discussion of the findings. Conclusions made from the research are presented in section 6.