TY - JOUR AU - Murtala Aminu Ibrahim AU - Mohd Noor Mohd Shariff PY - 2017/11/21 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - MEDIATING ROLE OF ACCESS TO FINANCE ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRATEGIC ORIENTATION ATTRIBUTES AND SMEs PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIA JF - International Journal of Business and Society JA - IJBS VL - 17 IS - 3 SE - Articles DO - 10.33736/ijbs.537.2016 UR - https://publisher.unimas.my/ojs/index.php/IJBS/article/view/537 AB - In spite of recognized significant contribution of SMEs to nations’ economy, Nigerian SMEsperformance is below expectation. This is because SMEs in Nigeria today faces severe limitationsin financing, management skill, marketing, modern technology and technical expertise. Theobjective of this study is to investigate the mediating role of access to finance on the positiverelationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO), market orientation (MO), learningorientation (LO), technology orientation (TO) and SMEs performance in Nigeria. A sample sizeof 522 SMEs operating in Kano, Kaduna and Sokoto states of Nigeria were selected usingstratified simple random sampling techniques. Partial Least Squares-Structural EquationModelling was used to analyze the data. Hence, the data analysis was conducted using SmartPLS3.0. The results of path analysis indicate that access to finance mediates the positive relationshipbetween MO, LO, TO and the performance of small and medium enterprises in Nigeria. This isan important additional explanation for the existence of the relationship between these strategicorientations and firm performance. The results further suggest that SMEs need to use theirstrategic activities to improve their ability to obtain finances in order to perform well. Finally,recommendations for further research are also discussed.Keywords: SMEs; Strategic Orientation; Nigeria; Access to Finance; Firm Performance. ER -