Lastly, the result of the analysis revealed that entrepreneurial orientation positively and significantly affects competitive advantage of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms in North Central Nigeria.The finding is consistent with the documentation of Grawe, Chen and Daugherty (2009), Laforet (2009), Lee (2016), Nasir, Al Mamun and Breen (2017), Laukkanen, Nagy, Hirvonen, Reijonen, and Pasanen (2013), Hult, Hurley, and Knight (2004) positively affects competitive advantage of companies. This implies that for a company to survive in a competitive market, firms must be entrepreneurial orientated. Entrepreneurial organizations are better able to match their internal organization by changing and shaping the environment and allocate resources to exploit uncertain business
opportunities. The dimensions innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy induce organizations to make proactive investments in resources that potentially lead to radical or discontinuous innovations with greater revenue potential than incremental innovations. However, empirical evidence does suggest that most entrepreneurs avoid high-risk situations as well as low risk situation. They actually settle for moderate risk taking. Risks are rationally assessed and evaluated before committing resources especially long term profits.
CHAPTER SIX
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 Summary of Findings
This study examines effect of strategic orientation and entrepreneurial development on the performance of Information and Communication Technology firms in North-Central, Nigeria.
A summary of the findings of the study are;
There is significant relationship between market orientation and competitive advantage of the Information and Communication Technology firms in North-Central, Nigeria.
Technology orientation significantly influence product innovation of Information and Communication Technology firms in North-Central, Nigeria
Resources orientation significantly influence competitive advantage of Information and Communication Technology firms in North-Central, Nigeria
There is significant relationship between learning orientation and service quality of Information and Communication Technology firms in North-Central, Nigeria
There is significant relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and competitive advantage of Information and Communication Technology firms in North-Central, Nigeria 6.2 Conclusions
This dissertation investigates effect of strategic orientation and entrepreneurial development on the performance of Information and Communication Technology firms in the North Central Nigeria. However, the study provided empirical evidence on the association between strategic orientation (proxy by marketing orientation, technology orientation, learning orientation, resources orientation and entrepreneurial orientation) and entrepreneurial development (proxy by product innovation, service quality and competitive advantage) of Information and Communication Technology firms in the North-Central, Nigeria.
Specifically, the study concluded that that marketing orientation has a significant and positive effect on competitive advantage of Information and Communication Technology firms in the
North-Central Nigeria indicating that marketing orientation creates sustained competitive advantage by providing customers with products and services with superior value in comparison with its competitors.
The study also concluded that there is a positive and significant association between technology orientation and product innovations of Information and Communication Technology firms in the North-Central Nigeria suggesting that technology orientation accounts for introduction of new products/services as well as causing incremental changes within the new product success. This implies that technologically oriented firms devote their resources to acquiring new and advanced technologies and developing new processes, products and services.
The study concluded that learning orientation has a positive and significant effect on service quality of the ICT firms operational in the North - Central region of Nigeria. This implies that learning orientation allows organizations to learn from errors and improve their internal organization and leads to improvements of existing products, services and most likely leads to innovations that are more radical and improved quality service.
The study further concluded that revealed that resources orientation have a significant and positive effect on competitive advantage of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms in North-Central, Nigeria. This implies that resources orientation creates sustained competitive advantage by developing and deploying unique and costly-to-imitate (bundles of) resources for the purpose of exploiting environmental opportunities and neutralizing threats resulting in a unique (superior valuable) resource base that is immobile and heterogeneous.
Finally, the study concluded that entrepreneurial orientation has a positive and significant effect on the competitive advantage of Information and Communication Technology firm in North-Central Nigeria suggesting that for a company to survive in a competitive market;
firms must be entrepreneurial orientated by changing and shaping the environment to exploit uncertain business opportunities.
However, by implementing different strategic orientations dimensions will enable ICT firms to develop entrepreneurial capabilities that in turn allow them to improve their performance, recreate their main strategies in the form of exploring different dimensions of strategic orientation, rediscover the ICT sector they are in; in short, they need to have the ability to be different from their competitors and create a difference in their products and services.
The final conclusion for this research was drawn based on the result of the study. In consonance with the foregoing, the study concludes that strategic orientation and entrepreneurial development construct determines the performance of Information and Communication Technology firms in the North-Central, Nigeria. Implementing strategic orientation and entrepreneurial development strategy increase the performance of Information and Communication Technology firms in the North-Central, Nigeria.