Responding to social change: innovativeness, entrepreneurial alertness, and entrepreneurial intention in Nigeria: the role of family support

Abstract

Presently, entrepreneurship has become one of the adequate remedies to ameliorate various economic and social problems. Thus, to boost entrepreneurship, the Nigerian government has opted to include entrepreneurial studies in tertiary institutions; to increase students’ entrepreneurial prowess and intentions. Understanding the factors inherent in the entrepreneurial process is imperative for entrepreneurial development. This present study addresses university students and entrepreneurial intention: the moderating role of family support in the relationships between innovativeness and entrepreneurial alertness on students’ entrepreneurial intention. The researchers adopted an exploratory quantitative approach using a purposive sampling technique. A total of 1383 students participated in the study across the federal universities in the southeast geopolitical zone in Nigeria. The findings showed that innovativeness, entrepreneurial alertness, and family support are positively associated with entrepreneurial intention. In addition, family support moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate students but did not affect innovativeness. Our findings suggest that educators and policymakers need to consider the role of exogenous factors (e.g., family support) when seeking to promote entrepreneurial actions of college students through policies or educational programs and to rethink the current models of entrepreneurial education that are prevalent in our educational system to imbibe inclusiveness of both exogenous and endogenous factors that influence entrepreneurship.