Influence of Entrepreneur Traits on SME's Financial Performance : Case Study of GCC Entrepreneurs Who Survived during COVID-19

The study aims to identify the influence of entrepreneur traits on SMEs performance during COVID-19. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries had increasingly seen entrepreneurship as a tool for empowering people and the key to job creation. SME’s are now the driving force in providing people with new job opportunities and eradicating unemployment. This study is based on the primary data collected from the sample of entrepreneurs in GCC countries through self-managed questionnaires sent through Gmail/google forms. The data is collected from the entrepreneurs of Gulf Cooperation Council countries using a simple random sampling technique. It was difficult to contact and conduct interviewees to collect data from them, especially during this pandemic and COVID-19 lockdown; therefore, the sample is small and limited. The analysis was done using correlation and regression and some valuable conclusions were drawn which can be beneficial to the entrepreneur, HEIs and governments while making policies. The study reveals that the entrepreneur possesses specific traits that influence the process of procuring resources and improving SMEs performance during crisis/pandemic. The SME age, entrepreneur education level and ranked Higher Education Institutions influences the performance of SMEs during the COVID-19