Abstract:
In Africa, Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are notably the engines that drive economic development. Unfortunately, over 32 % of SMEs fail before they celebrate their second birthday. In Uganda, entrepreneurs are creative, recognize opportunities and endeavour to exploit them; however, the failure rate of SMEs is still great. Despite the Ugandan government trying to invest in entrepreneurship programs, SMEs have continued to fail. This study explored the effect of opportunity recognition and design thinking, and financing decisions on entrepreneurial success among SME owners in Kampala, Central division, Uganda. The study adopted a cross-sectional research design and quantitative method. The findings revealed a positive effect of opportunity recognition, design thinking, and financing decisions on entrepreneurial success (F=0.443, Sig = 0.000). The variables explained 55% of the variance of Entrepreneurial success (R Square =0.555; Adjusted R Square = .541). It was concluded that opportunity recognition, design thinking, financing decision strategies are essential for SME success. The study recommends that SMEs should design and implement sustainable and effective opportunity recognition, adopt design thinking, and effective financing decision strategies, which ultimately lead to entrepreneurial success of SMEs.
