<![CDATA[Purpose: This study empirically examines the extent to which entrepreneurial knowledge influences business success among small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner-managers. At the moment, Entrepreneurial knowledge (EK) has emerged as a critical cognitive asset distinguishing successful ventures from those that falter in their formative years. Grounded in Human Capital Theory (Becker, 1964) and the Resource-Based View(Barney, 1991), domain specific entrepreneurial knowledge is theorised to enhance founders' capacity to recognise opportunities, acquire resources, and govern promising operations, thus improving the possibility of venture survival and profitability. Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was employed. Data were collected from a purposive sample of 132 SME owner-managers using a structured questionnaire comprising ten items measuring EK and six items measuring business success, all rated on a five-point Likert scale. Following instrument validation through a pilot study confirming construct reliability, data were analysed in IBM SPSS Statistics using Pearson correlation and simple linear regression. Results: Consequently, entrepreneurial knowledge was significantly and positively correlated with business success (r = 0.456, p < 0.001). The regression model was statistically significant (F (1, 130) = 34.164, p < 0.001), with EK explaining 20.81 percent of the variance in BS (R² = 0.208). The unstandardised coefficient indicated that each one-unit increase in EK corresponds to a 0.318-unit increase in BS (B = 0.318, SE = 0.054, β = 0.456, t = 5.845, p < 0.001). The hypothesis H₁ that EK positively influences BS was therefore supported. Implications: The findings validate Human Capital Theory and Resource-Based View propositions, offering actionable guidance for entrepreneurship mentors, SME support agencies, and policy makers seeking to design knowledge-intensive founder-development interventions. The findings further suggest that SME development programmes should strengthen entrepreneurial knowledge in areas such as opportunity recognition, resource acquisition, management knowledge, and self-development. Future research is recommended to examine additional factors that may influence business success, including financial capital, network embeddedness, market structure, and macroeconomic conditions, as well as to employ longitudinal designs to strengthen causal inference. Keywords: entrepreneurial knowledge; business success; human capital theory; resource-based view; SME performance]]>
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