Entrepreneurial Orientation and the Performance of the Agro-allied Enterprises in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

It is widely recognized that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the major drivers of sustainable economic growth, sources of income generation and panacea for poverty reduction in developing countries. Unfortunately, they are faced with numerous challenges that threaten their existence and survival. This precarity of small entrepreneurial organizations in entrepreneurial ecosystem has prompted widespread attention by scholars and researchers. Hence, it is critical to take into consideration examining the performance of the enterprises. This study analyzed the effect of entrepreneurial orientation dimensions, personal and institutional characteristics on the performance of small and medium agro allied enterprises. Through the multistage sampling procedure, a total of 198 SMEs were selected for the study and data were collected with the aid of questionnaire. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Results revealed that among the entrepreneurial orientation dimensions, only risking taking and innovativeness significantly and positively affected the performance of SMEs agro allied enterprises. Furthermore, findings showed that except for size of business which was negatively related to the growth of SMEs, educational level of entrepreneurs, managerial and business experience positively and significantly impacted on the performance of SMEs. Policies to encourage SMEs invest in risky investments and create new product and services should be pursued.

Power Quality Improvement of Distribution System With Dispersed Generation Using Novel Algorithm for Detection and Control of Islanding Process

Distribution engineers investigate economical and technical feasibility of new capacity expansion alternatives. Distributed generation (DG) can be used effectively to support the customer’s power quality requirements. DG is an imperative tool that can partially replace the need to erect new generating stations in order to cope with the increasing load demands. However, numerous complexities arise like parallel operation of DG within existing system, phenomena of islanding and its detection, micro grid operation, monitoring and control etc. Several techniques have been developed for the effective detection of islanding. These techniques have numerous deficiencies. First of all, a majority of these islanding detection techniques have been developed only for balanced three phase load. No single-phase load and unbalanced three phase loads have been considered. Secondly, successful transfer into autonomous micro grid operation requires islanding detection and a subsequent change in control strategy of micro grid DG units. Thirdly, this operation causes large amount of current flow out of the micro grid into the fault, resulting in severely depressed micro grid bus voltage. In this research work, the emphasis is to improve these problems and overcome the drawbacks of existing techniques. The aims and objectives of this study are to develop a novel islanding detection technique, reliable, effective and efficient operation of DG in coordination with main utility network as well as power quality improvement for essential load. In order to improve the power quality of distribution network and to detect the islanding phenomena with DG, innovative techniques are required to implement the solution and mitigate the problems effectively. In this research study, using an analytical approach, two algorithms have been designed; a comprehensive algorithm for the implementation of distributed generation (IDG) by finding the optimal size and location of ivDG for power quality improvement and a new islanding detection algorithm (NIDA) for islanding detection under multiple distributed generation scenarios. The proposed algorithms can be utilized effectively to enhance the feeder performance having randomly distributed loads. The algorithms have been designed in “C language” and are based upon the power quality improvement of distribution feeder in terms of node voltage profile enhancement, power loss reduction and islanding detection in multi-DG scenario. The newly designed algorithms outperform the conventional approaches, which encounter numerous complexities during their implementation. The designed algorithms have the capabilities to operate under uniform and non-uniform loads with low power factor for both single DG and multi-DG scenario. The suggested algorithms have been implemented on different feeders including, 11kV feeder, 12.5kV feeder and IEEE 34 bus feeder. The feeders have been simulated in “C-language” and the results have been verified. The simulation results show that the algorithms can be implemented efficiently to detect the islanding phenomena and enhance the distribution system performance in terms of node voltage profile improvement and power loss reduction.