Entrepreneurial Social Skills and the Performance of Private Healthcare Enterprises in South-South Nigeria
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial social skills, one dimension of entrepreneurial emotional intelligence (EEI), and three measures of enterprise performance (financial, operational and marketing performance) among private healthcare enterprises in South-South Nigeria. Isolating a single EEI dimension and testing it against three distinct performance outcomes allows the study to establish how the interpersonal competence of healthcare entrepreneurs relates to each performance domain. A positivist, correlational survey design was adopted. From a population of 507 private healthcare enterprises, a sample of 224 enterprises was determined with the Taro Yamane formula, and two key informants per enterprise (448 respondents) were purposively selected. A structured five-point Likert questionnaire, validated for face and content validity (Cronbach's α = .756 in the pilot test), was administered; 400 questionnaires were retrieved and 385 (85.9%) were valid. Three null hypotheses were tested with Pearson's product-moment correlation at the 0.05 level, supplemented by coefficients of determination and Fisher-z 95% confidence intervals. Social skills were positively and significantly related to financial performance (r = .600, p < .001), operational performance (r = .596, p < .001) and marketing performance (r = .587, p < .001). Social skills shared between 34.5% and 36.0% of the variance with each performance measure, and all three null hypotheses were rejected. The overlapping confidence intervals indicate that the strength of association did not differ meaningfully across the three performance domains. The cross-sectional, perception-based and non-probability design supports association rather than causation, and the geographical coverage is concentrated in Rivers State. Future studies should use multi-source and longitudinal designs with multivariate controls. Owners and managers of private healthcare enterprises should treat interpersonal competence (communication, relationship building, motivation, conflict resolution and trust building) as a strategic capability and invest in structured social-skills development. Health-sector regulators and enterprise-support agencies should embed such training in capacity-building programmes. The study provides dimension-specific evidence on social skills and a three-domain performance profile for service-based healthcare small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in an under-researched Nigerian region, and links the findings to Sustainable Development Goals 3, 8 and 9.
Authors: Onyirimba, Ndidi P., Ogbonna, Doris N.
Institution: Ignatius Ajuru University of Education
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7224983977