STRATEGIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF INDIGENOUS TECHNICAL OILFIELD SERVICES FIRMS IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA.

This study investigated the relationship between the multidimensionality of strategic entrepreneurship and operational performance of selected indigenous technical oilfield services firms in Rivers State. The researcher used descriptive research design for the study. Three research objectives, questions and hypotheses were used for the study. The researcher employed a self-developed five-points Likert scale structured survey questionnaire based on the strategic entrepreneurship and operational performance constructs as the instrument for data collection. To answer the research questions and test the research hypotheses, a simple random sampling technique with the support of Taro Yamane was used to determine the sample size which gave rise to a total of 72 indigenous technical oilfield services firms from the population of 88 firms operating in Rivers State. The questionnaire and data integrity tests for reliability, validity and normality were performed in IBM SPSS version 29. The reliability test gave Cronbach’s Alpha test scale of 0.94, Pearson’s r validity test gave 97% valid score of the 30 question items in the questionnaire and the data were not normally distributed based on Shapiro-Wilk’s statistic at 5% level of significance. The results of Ordinal logistic regression analysis and Spearman’s rank order correlation showed positive strong and significant relationships exist between the dimensions of strategic entrepreneurship and measures of operational performance. The study, therefore, concludes that strategic entrepreneurship could be a leverage in gaining strong competitive advantage and sustained improvement in operational performance of indigenous technical oilfield services firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]