Linking technology entrepreneurship to a business model towards the growth of ventures: Lessons from Ethiopian small manufacturing ventures

Evidence exist that most small ventures fail at developing a successful business model (BM) to enhance their technological capability. Besides, the studies that were undertaken in low-income countries also have no capacity to demonstrate the processes in the articulation of a BM that failed to consider the opportunities of technology entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study analyzes the linkage between technology entrepreneurship and the BM toward small venture growth. To achieve this, data were collected using a questionnaire from 335 small manufacturing enterprises selected from Addis Ababa. The result indicates that BM influences venture's growth indirectly through technology entrepreneurship. To the small businesses facing the problems of resource scarcity and poor strategy development, designing appropriate BM is an opportunity and can be used as an input to the adoption of technology entrepreneurship. Besides, by capturing values from combining the factors of production and technology entrepreneurship, the BM organizes and orchestrates the incumbent assets and other resources that make enterprises grow more than their counterparts. As a result, small enterprises should try to exploit existing technological opportunities by developing technology-oriented BM and integrating with technology entrepreneurship.