Zeleke Worku

(Tshwane University of Technology Business School, Pretoria 0001, South Africa)

 

 

Abstract: This article is a result of a 5-year long follow-up study (2007 to 2012) of a random sample of 349 small and medium-sized business enterprises that operate in and around the City of Pretoria in South Africa. Data was gathered from each of the businesses on socioeconomic factors that are known to affect the long-term survival of small businesses. The objective of the study was to identify and quantify key predictors of viability and long term survival. The study found that 188 of the 349 businesses that took part in the study (54%) were not viable, and that the long-term survival and viability of small businesses was adversely affected by lack of entrepreneurial skills, lack of supervisory support to newly established businesses, and inability to operators running newly established businesses to acquire relevant vocational skills.

 

 

Key words: Pretoria; small businesses; survival analysis; entrepreneurial skills; hazard ratio

 

JEL codes: C5, M21