FACTORS AFFECTING ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE

1.0   INTRODUCTION

1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

An entrepreneur is a person who starts a business, or Businesses, taking on financial risk in the hope of profit. (Mertl, 2014). Entrepreneurs on the other hand enjoy relatively more employment. The greatest advantage that the entrepreneur enjoys in the sense of ownership beside the pleasure of creating an enterprise and or running the same in the way he or she likes. Other advantages includes; self-expression, community service, growth, self employment, social relations, advertisement, security, legacy, independence, enjoy greater prestige and status in the society etc.

        Entrepreneurial is considered as the act of creating the risk and the tasks of an entrepreneur. Authority while discussing small business and it is initiators explained this almost in the same way (Pfeffer and Fong 2004).

The term entrepreneur and entrepreneurship are inter-linked, one can think without the other. Entrepreneur and entrepreneurship are increasingly getting attention of many irrespective of their age and status. (Kirby 2004)

It should be noted that though most entrepreneurial business owners they can also be big business owners. This is because entrepreneurs unlike small business owners are innovative and when operating in an enabling business environment, can rapidly create a large amount of wealth while bearing very high risk. In-fact innovative is considered to be the strategy tool of entrepreneur this is one of the tool that enable them to gain strategic advantages over competitors (Quick MBA 2010).

Entrepreneurship is actually concerned with creating opportunities and meeting the needs of individuals. The high rate of rural, urban migration, poverty, gangsters, hooliganism, political, assassination and kidnapping in Nigeria are mostly caused by unemployment, poverty and lack of entrepreneurial skills. (Odah 2009)

However the curriculum of tertiary institution in Nigeria currently lack adequate entrepreneurial component to prepare graduates to acquire suitable skills that would enable them to explore and exploit business opportunities within their environment. Entrepreneurship as defined by Hwawkolo (2003) is the ability to set up and effect wily manages an enterprise as different from being employed in paid employment.

The Nigeria educational curriculum in the universities, polytechnics, colleges of education are not adequate to prepare graduates to be self-sufficient. It is true that about 70% of business failures within our environments are attributed to lack of entrepreneurial information. (Nwosu 2006).

Entrepreneurship is basically concerned with creating wealth and livelihood through production of goods and services. This result in a process of upward change whereby the real per-capital income of a country experiences sustained increase over time or in other words economic growth takes place. The generation of the business opportunities in any country is a direct function of entrepreneurial activities. This emanates from idea generation leading to wise and profitable combination of human material and financial resources towards the actualization of pre-determined goals (Ebiringa 2011).

According to Harper (2003) entrepreneurship is the main mechanism that creates wealth. Nigeria is rich in human resources with abundant tapped and untapped natural resources. According to Anyadike et al (2012) this human and natural resources notwithstanding, Nigeria is still one of the poorest country in the world and has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in Nigeria. Entrepreneurship development therefore is considered a vital link to an overall economic growth of a nation through its positive impact on economic development especially at the grass roots (Barringer and Ireland 2012, Weirich et al 2008).

Entrepreneurship helps to create wealth and reduce unemployment, produce creativity and innovation and increase the total production of a country (Shane 2003).

Globally entrepreneurship skill acquisition programs introduced into educational institution were not meant to provide the level of education or knowledge needed to exploit entrepreneurial opportunity which could help the economic development of such countries (Emaikwu 2011, Shane 2003).

The study have shown that skill acquisition is the most critical factor in the utilization of entrepreneurship opportunity for self-employment (Ekpe et al 2012)