New paradigms on performance of SMEs

Small and medium enterprises are major players in the competition and growth of economies. They have been accelerating changes towards achieving Burundi’s vision 2025. Even so, they have experienced numerous challenges which hinder their performance. Those obstacles can be improved by adopting entrepreneurial innovation as a strategy. The focus of this paper was to examine how entrepreneurial innovation affects the performance of small and medium enterprises in Bujumbura, Burundi. The resource-based view and dynamic capability theory were the main theories. This study used positivism as a research philosophy. An explanatory research design was employed on a sample size of 164 small and medium enterprises selected from the target population of 279 small and medium enterprises in Bujumbura, Burundi. The study found that process, organizational, and market innovation all had a significant effect on the performance of small and medium enterprises, while product innovation had no effect. The study recommends that small and medium business owners and managers should focus their efforts on establishing entrepreneurial innovation such as process, organizational, and market innovation to improve their performance and acquire a long-term competitive edge.