Twenty-third International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The vital role played by small businesses in economic development has been acknowledged by scholars and management practitioners worldwide. Despite this, small businesses have faced diverse challenges from environmental factors. The impact of these factors on small businesses performance has been documented in the literature. More so, existing studies have intensively researched the influence of owner-managers diversity dimensions on firms’ performance. Nevertheless, earlier research studies had paid scant attention to the way and the circumstances under which diversity dimensions influence firms’ performance. Hence, this study examines the empirical link between surface-level and deep-level diversity dimensions and small businesses financial and non-financial performance. It further investigates whether the presence of entrepreneurial orientation and organizational capabilities either mediate or moderate this relationship. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted for this study. Using a stratified random sampling technique, 243 owners/managers across different sectors in the six major commercial cities that house 80 percent of small businesses in Ondo State, Nigeria, were selected as the study respondents. A structured questionnaire was used to capture the data. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques such as frequency distribution, factor analysis, correlation coefficient, and regression analysis. The findings demonstrated that apart from sex and religion, other surface-level and deep-level diversity construct significantly influence small businesses financial and non-financial performance, and all the constructs of entrepreneurial orientation excluding autonomy mediate this relationship. The study also found that several organizational capabilities variables moderate owner-managers diversity-performance relationship. The policy and practical implications are discussed.