Entrepreneurship intention among students. The antecedent role of culture and entrepreneurship training and development

Abstract

With a depleting national economy which has no answer to the increasing rate of unemployment put at 23.4% in the year 2012 alone and coupled with a consistent increase in the number of University graduates, put at 3 million on yearly basis, out of which only 10 percent have the opportunity to join the formal sector, the federal government of Nigeria has mandated that a compulsory entrepreneurship training program (ETP) be observed in higher institutions of learning in order to enhance students with the skills and resources that will enable them to become self employed after graduation. However, no empirical evidence is presently in existence regarding the ability of this program in achieving this stated objective. This study examined the influence of entrepreneurship training program and cultural orientation on the intention of students to engage in entrepreneurial practices. A self administered and structured questionnaire which measures three cultural predictors: perceived appropriateness, perceived consistence and perceived effectiveness, entrepreneurial training and entrepreneurial intention was employed in eliciting responses from three hundred and fifty seven (357) randomly selected final year students of Bayero University Kano. From the total 357 copies of questionnaire distributed, 310 copies were recovered, 24 copies were excluded due to exclusion criteria, 31 copies were discarded for improper completion, and the final 255 copies were used for analysis indicating a usable response rate of 71.4%. The result from the regression analysis conducted indicates that perceived appropriateness, perceived effectiveness and entrepreneurial training, with the exception of perceived consistence have a positive and significant effect on entrepreneurial intention. Based on these findings, it was recommended that school authorities and relevant stake holders should engage the use of mass communication in disseminating information that fosters perceived appropriateness and perceived effectiveness in addition to improving the quality of entrepreneurial training facilities in schools. The study's limitation is its focus on the students of only one higher institution of learning which makes the results uncovered, fall short of being generalized to all the students in Nigerian higher institutions of learning.