Effects of the Establishment of Entrepreneurial Orientation on the Performances of Small and Medium Enterprises in Transition Countries: Empirical Evidences from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has a relatively low level of entrepreneurial activity as evidenced by GEM reports but also has an economic structure in which SMEs account for about 99% of the total number of enterprises. The goal of this paper was to examine the level of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and influence of EO on business performances of SMEs in the Republic of Srpska (RS), one of the two BiH entities, in which the empirical research was done. We have used adapted Covin & Slevin (1989) version of the questionnaire. We found out that only 12.28% of sampled SMEs have all three dimensions of EO pronounced. The least pronounced dimension is risk-taking and the most pronounced dimension is proactiveness. Our research did not confirm the impact of EO on selected indicators of business performances.