Undergraduate Students' Intention to Start their Own Business in Nigeria: the Importance of Family-Support, Innovativeness and Alertness

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is one of the effective solutions to address a range of social and economic issues. Therefore, the Nigerian government decided to integrate entrepreneurial subjects in tertiary institutions to promote entrepreneurship and strengthen students' entrepreneurial prowess and intentions. Entrepreneurial development requires an understanding of the factors that are intrinsic to the entrepreneurial process. The current study examines the relationship between university students' entrepreneurial intention, family-support and innovativeness alertness. Survey design was used and convenience sampling was employed in obtaining a sample of seven hundred (700) respondents across selected federal universities in southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The results demonstrated a favorable correlation between students’ entrepreneurial intention and innovativeness, entrepreneurial alertness, and family-support. Furthermore, among undergraduate students, family-support mitigated the association between entrepreneurial awareness and entrepreneurial ambition, but it had no effect on innovativeness. Our research indicates that when trying to encourage college students to take entrepreneurial actions through policies or educational programs, educators and policymakers should take into account the influence of exogenous factors such as family-support. They should also reconsider the current models of entrepreneurial education that are widely used in our educational system in order to integrate inclusiveness of both exogenous and endogenous factors influencing entrepreneurship.