Entrepreneurial Intention Among Nigerian University Students

Abstract

Entrepreneurial intention (EI) is one of the major contributing factors to the formation, growth and development of entrepreneurship. It promotes self reliance and brings about initiatives. Entreprenuership on the other hand, has been considered as an engine of growth for economic growth and development of developed and emerging economies.

Acadamic discussions and policy initiatives are increasing nowadays on the vital role of entrepreneurial development in a society. This has been buttressed by the recent loss of jobs due to 2008-2009 financial crisis as well as increasing unemloyment across the globe. In Nigeria, the official rate of unemployment is around 24 percent while 46.5 percent of the youth population are unemployed. The unemployed rate among gradutes has increased from 25.6 percent in 2003 to 42.7 percent in 2011.

This unwelcome development requires a concerted effort at academic and governmental levels. The objective of this paper is to examine the entreprenuerial intenton among University students in Nigeria. This will help to identify entreprenuerial intention which determines behaviour as well as the need to gauge entrepreneurial awareness among the respondents.

The paper uses a modified version of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as the main framework of examining entrepreneurial intention. A sample size of 205 was drawn from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Univesity (ATBU). Data was analysed using structural equation modeling. The findings show that, entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norm and power of behavioural control are all significant predictors of EI. In addition, other indirect relationships were also found to be significant. Overall the result shows the model fits the the data well.