Personal Initiative, Social Networking and Entrepreneurial Inclination among Disabled Students of Tertiary Institutions in Plateau State

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is vital in the areas of innovation, job creation, nations ‘economic and societal advancement. In view of that, Social networking is seen to be important in moderating the relationship between personal initiative and entrepreneurial inclination. This study focuses on investigating the moderating role of social networking on personal initiative and entrepreneurial inclination relationship of disabled students. The study followed a descriptive survey where quantitative approach was employed. Out of the total number of (210) questionnaires administered to disabled students across the five Tertiary Institutions (University of Jos, Plateau State Polytechnic, Plateau State University, College of Education Gindiri and Federal college of Education Pankshin) in Plateau State, Nigeria, two hundred and seven (207) were retrieved but only two hundred and three (203) were used for analysis after eliminating wrongly filled questionnaires by the respondents and the unit of analysis was at the individual level. Analysis of data involved the use of statistical package for Social Sciences SPSS version 23.0 and AMOS version 23. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation model. Results revealed that personal initiative (proactiveness, resilience and innovation) significantly and positively influences entrepreneurial inclination. Also, social networking does not moderate (Weakens) the relationship between personal initiative and entrepreneurial inclination of disabled students of Tertiary Institutions in Plateau State. The present study will help policy makers and government to give special attention to disabled students by encouraging innovativeness and proactiveness among them thereby boosting their entrepreneurial spirit. Also, the society should help encourage and support the disabled students through positive interaction and networking to help boost their entrepreneurial inclination. Like any other research, this study is limited in the following ways. Since only a single research methodological approach was employed, future research could undertake a mixed approach and triangulate to validate the current findings. Further, a longitudinal approach should be employed to study entrepreneurial inclination trends among disabled students over years.