THE EFFECT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION ON BUSINESS PERFORMANCE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF NECESSITY AND OPPORTUNITY ENTREPRENEURS BY GENDER.

Entrepreneurship is known, contribute to the economic growth locally as well as globally. To make entrepreneurship play its economic role, entrepreneurs are oriented by different factors and perform differently in their business. This lead the researchers to investigate the entrepreneurial orientation considering necessity and opportunity factors among women and men business owners and their owned businesses in Huye District. This was done to find out the effect of such orientation on their business performance and to examine the significance of cross-gender differences with regard to the variables under study. For achieving the above objectives; structured questionnaire and documentary review techniques were used to collect data. From total population of 1787 business owners identified from 11 sectors in Huye District, researchers sampled 327 respondents. Random and convenience sampling techniques were used. The results showed that both males and females are more opportunity oriented than necessity oriented. Study shows that business owned by males perform better than business owned by females regarding both financial and non-financial performance aspects. It was also found out that there are no significant differences in both levels of entrepreneurial orientation and business performance across gender. Correlation analysis revealed a significant relationship between entrepreneurial orientation of women and men business owners and their business performance. Based on these findings, it recommends that the Government of Rwanda (GoR) should focus training and sensitization for women to increase their involvement in business and improve the performance of existing women business owners. Improving entrepreneurship program by MINEDUC should also be given consideration especially at primary and secondary levels/educations to prepare potential entrepreneurs.


Introduction
Entrepreneurs have been recognized as key contributors to the local and global economic growth of most countries because they are major source of business development and growth, as well as new job creation (Allen et al., 2007;Fischer et al., 1993). Researchers have found that the proportion of male opportunities in entrepreneurship surpasses that of women and free market forces continue to place women at a disadvantage in the entrepreneurial market (Alsos and Ljunggren, 1998;Anna et al., 2000).
Studies identifying the relative gender gaps in business performance are consistent globally, though not in their magnitude (Allen et al., 2007;OECD, 2005; Reynolds, Bygrave Autio, 2004).
They further said that women business owners manage smaller businesses than men, they rarely have employees, and the growth of their businesses is slow and to a lower level. The difference between the businesses owned by men and those owned by women appears in the latter's lower levels of capitalization in their firms and their businesses' lower annual revenues (Belcourt, 1990; Gatewood, Shaver Gartner, 1995).
Rwanda is considered as one of the sub-Saharan African countries that has a grip on gender equality and entrepreneurship as a major tool in job creation which lead to poverty eradication, hence making female enterprises to be highly considered (Mutarindwa and Shema, 2017).
Despite the above consideration, the number of women in entrepreneurship in Rwanda is less compare to the other activities, this is evident as 42 percent of the enterprises are owned by women of which 58 percent are in informal and these businesses accounts for 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (Mutarindwa and Shema, 2017).
Entrepreneurship literature revealed that there is little theoretical and empirical work that has been offered to explain the mechanism through which entrepreneurial orientation affect business performance. Although there exist empirical explorations of gender and entrepreneurial orientations and their effects on business performance, there has not been any research conducted on gender and entrepreneurial orientation and business performance in Rwanda.
Existing studies have argued that women have largely been drawn into entrepreneurship to be rewarded, work-life balance, independence and flexibility, (opportunity-driven circumstances), on the other hand, others argue that women have been pushed into entrepreneurship due to restructuring and downsizing, which have reduced the availability of secure jobs in the labor market (necessity-driven circumstances) (Kariv,2011). Therefore, this research intends to explore the entrepreneurial orientation of women vs men business owners in Huye district and its impact on their business performance. In this way we hope to explain the factors that enhance business owners' performance in the perspective of opportunity/ neccessity entrepreneurship. This study will further establish the relationship between entrepreneurial orientations and the business performance of men and women owned businesses in Rwanda particularly Huye district.

Literature Review
Opportunity-and necessity-driven entrepreneurial orientation GEM defines two types of entrepreneurship: opportunity based and necessity based. In general, nations with high per capita income have proportionately less necessity-pushed entrepreneurial activity and more opportunity-pulled entrepreneurial activity and vice versa for nations with low income. People in higher-income nations tend to have more opportunities for employment and stronger safety nets like social welfare programs, especially for the out-of-work; hence, proportionately fewer are pushed into entrepreneurship to support themselves and their families (Filion, 2005).
A possible explanation is that, as a nation makes the transition from a less developed nation to a developing one, there are more opportunities for employment with established businesses, so entrepreneurship, especially the necessity-driven form, declines. Entrepreneurial activity bottoms out and then increases again as more and more opportunities, particularly in service and knowledge-based industries, are spotted by entrepreneurs with the skills and motivation to develop them.
Entrepreneurial orientation driven by 'Opportunity' and 'necessity' has their origin from both country and individual level. Kirzner (1973) stress that "opportunity entrepreneurs are viewed as those who start a business because they are motivated or enthused to launch a venture and foresee the benefits of entrepreneurship in terms of personal and economic independence, whereas necessity entrepreneurship is more requirement based and typifies individuals who embark upon entrepreneurship out of limited or no suitable alternatives in the labor market". In most cases, opportunity entrepreneurs have other employment alternatives, some exposed to low risky or more stable than entrepreneurship (Allen et al., 2007;Langowitz and Allen, 2006); while necessity entrepreneurs have limited or no job opportunities, are experiencing unsatisfactory severe job conditions in their current employment (Langowitz and Allen, 2006;Riverin and Filion, 2005).
Through the years, these entrepreneurial-orientation types have been attached to macro-related factors at the country level, i.e., push-pull factors (Kariv et al., 2009;Ritsilä and Tervo, 2002)Pull factors are related to an opportunity driven orientation, and are seen as the environmental factors that prompt the desire to gain more from the entrepreneurial path; they are often seen as a way of achieving upward mobility and of accelerating socioeconomic status for example, making money, being independent, and tracking their work towards their interests (De Freitas, 1991).
On the other hand, push factors are associated with macro-level factors that produce a necessitydriven orientation and are seen as the invisible barriers facing individuals' career advancement prospects in the corporate world (Kariv,2011). The most common opportunity-hindering factors found in the research are unemployment, under-employment (Ritsilä and Tervo, 2002), discrimination in the labor market or in a prior job, severe dissatisfaction in a prior/current job with respect to future career opportunities, and unrewarding relationships with co-workers, among others. Thus, push factors force the individual to take some action that involves inherently higher risk, such as starting a business that may eliminate the experienced discrimination or dissatisfaction, and that would not be an alternative under normal circumstances (Bates, 1997;De Freitas, 1991).
Bygrave Z. (2011) asserts that entrepreneurs have a higher internal locus of control than non entrepreneurs, which means that they have a stronger aspiration to be in control of their own destiny. This has been confirmed by many surveys in which entrepreneurs said independence was a very important reason for starting their businesses. The main reasons they gave were independence, financial success, self-realization, recognition, innovation, and roles (to continue a family tradition, to follow the example of an admired person, to be respected by friends). Men rated financial success and innovation higher than women did. Interestingly, the reasons that nascent entrepreneurs gave for starting a business were similar to the reasons given by nonentrepreneurs for choosing jobs. Sometimes the person has been passed over for a promotion or even laid off or fired. The author further said that, business started by men require more capital than those started by women; a partial explanation is that women are more likely than men to start necessity-pushed businesses, which are more likely to be consumer-oriented and less likely to be business services. A business started out of necessity is as a result of an entrepreneur who cannot find a better source of income through employment where as opportunity entrepreneurship is pursuit of a new venture because it is perceived as better than remaining in one's current job or other jobs that might be available.

Business performance
Businesses with entrepreneurial orientation have the capacity to discover and exploit new market opportunities (Wiklund & Sheperd, 2003). Research has employed a variety of financial measures like cash flow, return on assets and return on equity to assess firm performance. Some studies also suggest a combination of financial and non-financial measures which offers more comprehensive evaluation on a firm's performance (Li et al 2009). Subjective non-financial measures include, among others, perceived market share, perceived sales growth, customer satisfaction, loyalty and brand equity (Li et al, 2009, Murphy, Trailer andHill (1996).
Radipere S., (2014) found that business performance have been measured by growth may be more accurate and accessible. He said that, for capturing different aspects of business performance, it is better to combine financial performance and growth such as business income, business profit, market share, return on investment, number of employees and product line. Cooper and Gascon (1992) identified individual factors influencing performance as experience, education, occupation of parents, gender, race, age and the entrepreneur's goals. Studies of individual factors influencing performance are common. Business performance is also an outcome that all entrepreneurs must address. Entrepreneurial orientation has little attention in the entrepreneurship literature although is found to be an important determinant of many life and outcomes (Bandura, 1997).

Relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation and Business Performance
Entrepreneurial orientation and its effect on business performance have been painted in theoretical discussions and empirical research. Entrepreneurial orientation at theoretical level is said to have positive correlation on business performance because firms with this strategic stance have advantage and are able to capitalize on emerging opportunities (Wiklund & Sheperd, 2003).
Past studies at empirical level have shown a positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance, for example a longitudinal study have found that entrepreneurial orientation to have long term effect on growth and financial performance of small businesses (Wiklund & Sheperd, 2003).

Research objectives
The methodology briefly given is intended to help achieve the following objectives: 1. Explore the entrepreneurial orientation of women and men business owners and their owned business performance.

2.
To examine if there are differences in the levels of entrepreneurial orientation.

3.
To examine if there are cross-gender differences in the levels of business performance.

4.
To analyse the relationship between the levels of entrepreneurial orientation of business owners and their owned business performance.

Research hypotheses
1. There are no significant differences in the levels of entrepreneurial orientation across gender.

2.
There are no significant differences in the levels of business performance across women and men owned businesses.

3.
There is no significant relationship between the levels of entrepreneurial orientation of business owners and the levels of their owned business performance.

Tools of analysis
The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to analysed collected data.
Through this software, descriptive statistics including frequencies, percentages and mean were obtained and used to present the results. Added to that, correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between variables while ANOVA was used to test the significance of differences.         Keller (2015), implies significant relationship between the two variables. Since the level of significance is less than 0.01, the hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between entrepreneurial orientation of women and men business owners and their business performance is rejected. Therefore, it can be inferred that there is a significant relationship between these two variables. This relationship then imply that the women and men entrepreneurial orientation influence either positively or negatively their business performance.

Recommendations and Research Contribution
Statistical findings of this research show that there is gender unbalance as far as starting business is concerned. This unbalance continued to their business performance where male performs better than their female counterpart. This led us to recommend the government to emphasis on trainings and sensitizing female to start their own businesses for linking their economic, household and family development through entrepreneurship. Encouraging female to embark in entrepreneurship will also reduce a serious problem of unemployment as it represents a high rank of 12 compare to 11 for male, as the reasons to start business.
Education was found to increase the business creation among women and men; this finding should be taken as a key contributor to the development of education as one of the vision 2050 objectives. This serves as motivator to the Ministry of Education to construct practical and relevant programs in entrepreneurship for potential entrepreneurs; specifically the two first levels (primary and secondary).
Moreover, this study contributes to the knowledge differently. One hand it contributes to the literature on the influence of gender on entrepreneurial orientation (necessity/opportunity) and on business performance in developing country like Rwanda. On the other hand, by highlighting that entrepreneurship attitude is not one perspective; but combines push and pull factors. This contributes mostly on the awareness of the two perspectives: necessity / opportunity related to gender.
BDF, RDB and the Districts should work more closely to attract and sensitize new business in production and agriculture sectors for the purpose of creating more employment on one side and transforming subsistence-based agriculture to market-oriented farming. This will increase productivity and satisfy local and overseas market; in addition to that Rwanda will benefit with those sectors during the African Continental Free Trade area soon launched.

Limitations and Further research
The current study has some limitations related to the availability of information regarding business ownership at district level. It was noted that out of 14 sectors found in Huye District, only business owners related data from 11 sectors were available. This prevented the researchers to cover the entire Huye District and narrowed the geographical scope. The findings of this research would have been improved by another research about comparative study of entrepreneurial orientation among Rwanda business owners to non-Rwandan business owners operating in Rwanda. Researchers can extend and verify our findings countrywide for capturing the hall country information. Finally, more background on necessity/opportunity orientation factors should be studied and reassessed confirms this research results and implications.