Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Success Factors and Mindset for Achieving Growth in SMMEs

A growth mindset enables entrepreneurs to continuously seek ways to improve and innovate, directly impacting business performance. Success factors, when effectively developed and leveraged, contribute to sustained business growth. However, limited research on this relationship exists in the South African context. To address this significant research gap, it is important to validate a measurement model that can accurately measure this relationship. Understanding this relationship can help entrepreneurs develop strategies that improve their chances of success. This can lead to more sustainable businesses and a more robust entrepreneurial ecosystem. The study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a measurement model that includes eight factors, namely entrepreneurial growth mindset, the success factors of opportunity recognition, creativity, innovation, resilience, adaptability, and risk-taking, as well as growth business performance. An online self-administered questionnaire, distributed to a database of an international research company, was used to collect the required data from 533 South African SMME owners. The gathered data was analyzed using various statistical techniques in AMOS, namely reliability and validity analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and collinearity diagnostics. The results suggest that there is a relationship between the factors included in the 8-structure model and that this model exhibits excellent reliability, validity, and model fit measures. Specifically, each factor’s Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability exceeds the 0.70 threshold, and there is evidence of construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. As such, the specified measurement model is reliable and valid and can be used to test paths between the factors in future studies.