Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the perspective of youth employees about owner manager businesses. The owner-manager business (a one-man business) is the most common in Lagos. Hence, an inquiry into their management style and how it impacts youth employees within the context of decent work is important to explore.Design/methodology/approachThe study used the convenience sample technique to obtain data from 382 owner-managers and youth employees who work in owner-managed businesses across various sectors. They were administered a questionnaire with carefully structured questions, with an 81% return rate. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) technique was used to identify the prominent parameters, and the hypothesis tested and validated accordingly.FindingsThe study identified three prominent factors that youth consider when working for an owner-manager business, i.e. the workplace factor, geographical factors and employee benefit. Consequently, issues regarding sustainable employment, conducive working conditions, job security and pension are paramount in the youths' view. Many owner-managers do not respect labour laws, and job security is low in owner-managed businesses; hence, they experience high turnover as most youth work in one-man businesses to gain experience.Originality/valueThe owner-manager business is the most predominant in the country and yet is under-researched. Furthermore, the perception of youth employees regarding owner-manager businesses provides a better understanding of performance and expected satisfactory outcome required from youth employees and how they can be met through proper channelling of their energies to the right tasks.
Highlights
The drive to achieve sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all (Sustainable Development Goal 8) is still a formidable challenge throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria
The first hypothesis tested explored whether ownermanagers provide secured work environments for their employees or not
The test shows that owner-managers do provide a secured environment with a p-value of 0.022 less than the 0.05 decision criterion
Summary
The drive to achieve sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all (Sustainable Development Goal 8) is still a formidable challenge throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria. With respect to the youth segment of the labour market, challenges are especially acute. Achievement of sustainable growth mandates that the economic value creation potential of youths be harnessed and actualised; while striving towards this objective, all stakeholders in the JEL Classification — J13, J21, L2, L26 © Oluyemi Theophilus Adeosun and Temitope Owolabi. Published in Journal of Business and Socioeconomic Development. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http:// creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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