DETERMINANT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS AMONG FRESH GRADUATE

TABLE OF CONTENT

Title page

Approval page

Dedication

Acknowledgment

Abstract

Table of content

CHAPETR ONE

1.0   INTRODUCTION 

1.1        Background of the study

1.2        Statement of problem

1.3        Objective of the study

1.4        Research Hypotheses

1.5        Significance of the study

1.6        Scope and limitation of the study

1.7       Definition of terms

1.8       Organization of the study

CHAPETR TWO

2.0   LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPETR THREE

3.0        Research methodology

3.1    sources of data collection

3.3        Population of the study

3.4        Sampling and sampling distribution

3.5        Validation of research instrument

3.6        Method of data analysis

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

4.1 Introductions

4.2 Data analysis

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Summary

5.3 Conclusion

5.4 Recommendation

Appendix

Abstract

The importance of fresh graduates in a developing country like Nigeria cannot be overemphasized, therefore, priority should be given to the study of the factors that spur entrepreneurial intentions among graduates in Nigeria with a view to promoting better policies and programs aimed at redirecting emphasis on entrepreneurship as a tool for economic growth and development. This study seeks to investigate empirically the factors influencing the entrepreneurial intentions of fresh graduates. The area of this study covers attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and self-efficacy and how these influence the intentions of graduates to become entrepreneurs. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaire and related literatures were reviewed. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and hypotheses was tested using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique. The finding suggests that the four factors examined has significant relationship with entrepreneurial intentions. It was therefore recommended that entrepreneurial values be promoted among graduates and graduates should be exposed to the skills required by entrepreneurs

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background of the study

The role of intentions has been acknowledged to be relevant in the managerial literature (Sutton, 1998). Studies have shown that intentions have the ability to predict both individual behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and organizational outcomes such as survival, development and growth (Mitchel, 1981). Hence, the capability to understand and predict intentions becomes a point of interest for both managers and entrepreneurs (Tubbs and Ekeberg, 1991). Intentions have been proved to be the best predictors of individual behaviours particularly when the behavior is rare, hard to observe or involves unpredictable time lags. The establishment of new ventures and the creation of new values in existing ones, which have been identified by Bird (1988) as the two outcomes of entrepreneurial intentions are good examples of such behaviours. It has been argued that most behaviours of social relevance such as health-related behaviours or the establishment of new organizations are under volitional control

Intention refers to a state of mind directing a person’s attention (and therefore experience and action) towards a specific object or path in order to achieve something. Entrepreneurial intention refers to a cognitive representation of actions to be implemented by individuals to either establish new independent venture or create new value within existing companies. Entrepreneurship education has continued to feature as a captivating theme in local summits and international conferences because of its potency as tool for mitigating unemployment and other social-economic challenges inhibiting sustainable development among human race. Entrepreneurship education is a purposeful intervention by an educator in the life of the learner to impact entrepreneurial qualities and skills to enable the learner survive in the world of business. Petridou, Sarri and Kyrgridou (2009) posit that a University can be conceptualized as a social innovation system, and that entrepreneurship education, when embedded in such a system could be regarded, not only as a task of producing entrepreneurially oriented competent individuals, but also as reproducing the social mechanisms that underpin and facilitate the birth and growth of businesses and firms. Although focusing on the role of education as a factor influencing entrepreneurial intention is appropriate, nevertheless this is not meant to deny the importance of other factors that contribute to entrepreneurial success (Laukkanen, 2000). Worthy of note is the nature of the entrepreneur and his/her character traits. The formation of entrepreneurial intentions depends on personal attitudes toward the act of starting a new venture. These attitudes in turn reflect individual beliefs and perceptions shaped by one’s personality, upbringing, education, values, innovativeness, risk taking propensity and experiences (Krueger and Carsrud, 1993). Thus, entrepreneurs come into existence by a process that includes a critical step—the formation of intentions prior to the act. At this first step there is a potential or nascent entrepreneur with the entrepreneurial traits such as innovativeness and high propensity to take risk, entrepreneurship education and motivation to commit the act (Krueger and Brazeal, 1994). The term potential entrepreneur applies to those individuals (male and female) within a given population or society that possess a particular set of personal traits, skills, aptitudes and desires believed to motivate entrepreneurial behavior. However, Zafar (2013) reported that Motivation, goals, and personal perception about entrepreneurial intention and success could be influenced by gender and therefore, by implication, male and female entrepreneurs have different goals, different traits and motivations that propelled them to own personal business and measure their successes differently. Entrepreneurs as agent of social and economic change were focused upon by Ogundele and Olayemi (2004) in their call for inclusion into Nigeria education curricula entrepreneurship education in all layers of Nigerian educational institutions. As if to heed this call, Nigerian universities in 2007 started entrepreneurship program as a mandatory course for their undergraduates. Egboh (2009) and Hisrich (2008) identified the goals and objectives of entrepreneurship education in Nigeria to include, provision of meaningful education to enhance the innovative capacity as well as skills necessary for taking calculative risk by undergraduates in the Nigerian universities. However, some years after the introduction of entrepreneurial education into the undergraduate programmes, Onuoha (2011) observed that the Nigerian university system still produces graduates that do not meet the need of the labor market judging from obvious rise in unemployment rate and major disconnect/mismatch between the expectations of the industry and products of the Nigerian universities. Consequently, crimes, human trafficking, prostitution, terrorism/insurgency and other social vices have been on the rise (Onuoha, 2011). Besides, definitions of entrepreneurship and the philosophy of entrepreneurship education do not in any way imply gender bias. But gender imbalances in the Nigerian educational system have been an issue of serious concern to educators and other stakeholders. Their status of being an untapped resource stems from their hindrances to education, entrepreneurial education inclusive (Alese, 2014). These hindrances hinge on economic, cultural, physiological and religious factors. Particularly, Kano, the north western Nigeria which is the setting of this study provides a peculiar scenario where female are highly discriminated against on the grounds of religion. Although a number of investigations have been conducted on entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention in Nigeria (Mbam and Nwibo, 2012), (Ogundele, Akingbade and Akinlabi, 2012), (Akhuemonkhan, Raimi and Sofoluwe, 2013), (Alese, 2014), none of them focused on northwestern Nigerian university graduates. Besides, none of these studies examines joint effects of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial traits on graduates’ intention to choose entrepreneurial career upon graduation, hence the justification for this study. Therefore, this study determined the joint effects of entrepreneurial education and two selected personality traits, namely, innovativeness and risk taking propensity on the entrepreneurial intention among Nigerian university graduates; and how mean scores on these variables for male significantly different from mean scores by the female.

It is certainly true that entrepreneurial ideas begin with inspiration; though intentions are needed in order for them to become manifest. Krueger (2000), argued that individual do not start a business as a reflex, but they do it intentionally. Hence, especially at the birth of an organization, the impact of entrepreneur’s intention is predominant; as a consequence, the founder’s intention determines the form and direction of a nascent organization at its inception.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The level of unemployment of graduates in Nigeria has become a national issue as the numbers of graduates from public and private higher educational institutions that join the job market increases each year. Academic qualifications can no longer guarantee immediate employment upon graduation, instead graduates are required to show a positive attitude towards the changing job market by investigating entrepreneurship as a possible basis for a career. In fact entrepreneurship would help these new graduates develop their own career and also ease the current unemployment issue by expanding the job market. Entrepreneurship is therefore the solution to the problem of unemployment.

The ability of new graduates to engage in entrepreneurial behaviour depends on a number of factors, thus there is need to conduct a study focusing on the entrepreneurial intentions and the factors affecting new graduates decision to engage in entrepreneurial behaviour.

This will therefore necessitate the following questions:

1               What is the effect of attitude on entrepreneurial intention?

2               What is the effect of subjective norms on entrepreneurial intention?

3               What is the effect of perceived behavioural control on entrepreneurial intention?

4               What is the effect of self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intention?

1.3 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The following hypothesis will be tested in the study:

H₀:   There is no significant relationship between Perceived behavioral control and entrepreneurial intentions

Ho2.   There is no significant relationship between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions.

Ho3.   There is no significant relationship between Attitude and entrepreneurial intentions.

Ho4.   There is no significant relationship between Subjective norm and entrepreneurial intention.

1.3         OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The major aim of this study is to determine and investigate the factors influence on the entrepreneurial intentions of fresh graduates. Other accessory objectives includes

2               To determine the effect of attitude on entrepreneurial intentions

3               To determine the effect of subjective norm on entrepreneurial intentions

4               To determine the effect of perceived behavioural control on entrepreneurial intentions

5               To determine the effect of self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intentions.

1.4         SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Several research studies exist in the field of entrepreneurship and enrepreneurship intentions of university students (Turker and Selcuk, 2008) and fresh graduates in Nigeria (Shittu and Dosunmu, 2014). There is no existing study on the factorial analysis of entrepreneurial intention among fresh graduates in Nigeria. The only study close to this study is that of shiitu and Dosunmu, (2014) but it only looked at family background as a factor affecting entrepreneurial intention. Hence this study is significant to the extent that is seeks to fill this knowledge gap by examining other factors such as attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and self-efficacy and their impact on entrepreneurial intention of fresh graduates in Nigeria.

The study will also form the basis for further studies and contribute to existing body of literatures in the field of entrepreneurship. It will also serve as a pointer to the solution of the problem of unemployment of fresh graduates in Nigeria.

1.5         LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Several challenges were encountered in this study which are considered as limitations. Firstly, this research study is entirely based on self-reported measures. A social desirability bias may appear in our study because subjects sometimes respond to surveys in a manner that make themselves meet society’s desires. An anonymity guarantee was reassured to the respondents. Some evidence shows that a self-report of dishonest behaviour can be quite accurate and the bias should have no impact on the testing of the model (Beck and Ajzen, 1991; Becker et al., 2006). Second, the dependent variable used in this study is the intention to engage in entrepreneurial behaviour rather than the actual behaviour itself. Even though many researchers have indicated that behavioural intention is an adequate proxy of actual behaviour (Allen, Fuller and luckett, 1998), the self-report method is still subjective to the bias of CMV.

Lastly, despite its extensive application, theory of planned behaviour has been criticized that it does not sufficiently elicit affective aspects for making decision. By introducing affective variables such as fear, mood and enjoyment, the variance explained in intention can be greatly increased. Therefore future research might consider including affective variables into the theory of planned behaviour.

1.6         SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study focus specifically on the factors affecting entrepreneurial intentions of fresh graduate in Nigeria. It examines four factors such as attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and self-efficacy. The study is restricted to only fresh graduates in Delta State, issele-uku NYSC camp. It is hoped that the views of these fresh graduates will reflect the views of other fresh graduates in the country.

1.7 OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCATION: Entrepreneurship education seeks to provide students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success in a variety of settings. Variations of entrepreneurship education are offered at all levels of schooling from primary or secondary schools through graduate university programs

INTENTION: Intention is a mental state that represents a commitment to carrying out an action or actions in the future. Intention involves mental activities such as planning and forethought.

FRESH GRADUATE: a student who holds the bachelor’s or the first professional degree and is studying for an advanced degree.

1.8 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows

Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), historical background, statement of problem, objectives of the study, research hypotheses, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlights the theoretical framework on which the study is based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study

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