Entrepreneurial Orientation as a Moderator on the Relationship between Entrepreneurship Education and Students' Intention to Venture Creation in Nigeria PDF

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Nigerian Journal of Management Technology & Development ISSN: 2006-1676 Volume 7 Number 2 December, 2016 Proposing Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation as a Moderator on the Relationship between Entrepreneurship Education and Students' Intention to Venture Creation in Nigeria Mohammed Ibra...

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Nigerian Journal of Management Technology & Development ISSN: 2006-1676

Volume 7 Number 2

December, 2016

Proposing Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation as a Moderator on the Relationship between Entrepreneurship Education and Students' Intention to Venture Creation in Nigeria Mohammed Ibrahim Aminu, Ph. D Department of Business Administration, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. email: [email protected]

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is one of the major mechanisms of eradicating graduates’ unemployment, higher reliance on government and white collar jobs, poverty, as well as improving well-being, standard of living, and general economic activities of most countries in the world. Unfortunately, this system has not yielded such immense important in Nigeria. This is as a result of the educational system in the country, which basically focuses on theoretical aspects other than practical aspects. Hence, the introduction of the entrepreneurial education in Nigeria has neglected the impact of harmonizing entrepreneurial curricula with practical experience, skills, and attitudes of entrepreneurs. To address this issue, this paper proposes a conceptual model thereby integrating entrepreneurship education with individual entrepreneurial orientation as a moderator variable to exert influence on the students’ intention to venture creation in Nigeria. Hence, this paper conceptually proposes that students who have inculcated such entrepreneurial postures practically, such as innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness are more likely to be influenced by entrepreneurship education towards venture creation than those whose have not. Keywords: Entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial orientation, intention to venture creation, students’ employability, Nigerian education 1. Introduction Youth entrepreneurship is one of the crucial methods of curtailing unemployment, creating job opportunities, as well as maximizing national income and economic growth and development for both developed and developing countries. By definition, as quoted in Oseifuah (2010), an entrepreneur is “a person who has the ability to explore, identify opportunities for improvement, mobilize resources, and implement actions to maximize those opportunities’. This researcher further argued that an entrepreneur is the coordinator of other production resources, the decision maker under uncertainty, innovator, as well as gap filler and input completer. Consequently, based on the aforesaid definition, to be an entrepreneur, that person is expected to encompass all those basic idiosyncratic postures of entrepreneurship based on the Miller's (1983) conceptualization, which theorized entrepreneurship as an ability to engage in product and market innovation, ©JOMATECH

undertaking somewhat risky business, as well as being proactive against competitors. Nigeria like most of the African developing economies, has been putting efforts for entrepreneurial and small business development programs (Mambula, 2002). A recent policy towards youth entrepreneurship in Nigeria is the introduction of entrepreneurial curriculum in the country’s institutions for higher learning (Enu, 2012). Even though the entrepreneurship education is vital for poverty eradication, employment creation, improving standard of living, general economic growth and sustainable development (Duze, 2011; Ediagbonya, 2013; Olorundare & Kayode, 2014), the introduction of such policy in Nigeria has not yielded the expected outcomes (Agbonlahor, 2016). In this regards, Ayatse (2013) maintained that the lack of synergy between the entrepreneurship practices and entrepreneurship education shows the weaknesses, inadequacies, and fallacies of this policy to attain its objectives in Nigeria. As such,

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the lack of the integration of the aforesaid entrepreneurial postures (i.e., innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness) with entrepreneurial curriculum is one of the major challenges of entrepreneurship education in Nigeria, which is aimed at equipping students with values of creativity and originality, autonomy, as well as motivation for venture creation and management in the country (see Ikpesu, 2008). Thus, this paper aims at conceptualizing the impact of entrepreneurial orientation as a moderating mechanism between entrepreneurship education and intention to venture creation among Nigerian students. The subsequent sections of this article concern with propositions and conceptual framework, implications, and lastly, limitations and directions for future research, as well as conclusions. 2. Propositions and Conceptual Framework 2.1 Entrepreneurship Education and Venture Creation Education is a vehicle for development of most countries including Nigerian, and thus it is the mechanism through which individuals acquire intellectual and manipulative skills (Agboola, 2010). Entrepreneurial education as a form of education, involves the development of social and economic efficiency of students by upgrading and changing their mindsets and thought patterns and subsequently their way of lives (Agbonlahor, 2016). It plays a role of providing training to the identified potential entrepreneurs through the traits and characteristics they possessed and portrayed, and impart them with relevant education to invoke their creativity and innovative abilities (Agboola, 2010). In essence, entrepreneurship education focal point is on developing the understanding and capacity for students to pursue entrepreneurial behaviors, skills, and attributes in verities of contexts (Duze, 2011). As such, this author further maintained that “different individuals will have a different mix of capabilities for demonstrating and acquiring entrepreneurial behaviors, skills and attributes” More so, (Agbonlahor, 2016) acknowledged that ©JOMATECH

December, 2016

entrepreneurial education continuously foster entrepreneurship culture among students with the aim of not only educating them, but to support them with idea and aspiration towards creating and also maintaining sustainable business ventures. Hence, this study proposes that: 1: Entrepreneurship education has as significant affects on the intention of Nigerian students towards venture creation 2.2 Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation as a Potential Moderator Bolton and Green (2012) conceptualized individual entrepreneurial orientation as a measurable concept from the basis of entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial orientation as alternatively called (Knight, 1997). However, the concept of entrepreneurial orientation was conceptualized in the work of some scholars in previous years (i.e., Covin & Slevin, 1989, 1991; Miller, 1983). By definition, entrepreneurial orientation refers to the strategic orientation of a firm that captures specific aspects of the firm’s decision-making styles, practices, and methods (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005). This involves the willingness of a firm managers to innovate and renew market offerings, take business related risks in trying out new and uncertain goods and services, as well as succeeding in competing with rival firms by being proactive (Covin & Slevin, 1991). Consequently, Bolton and Green (2012) maintained that, since entrepreneurial orientation is a behavioral construct even at the firm level, it is logical to examine individual entrepreneurial orientation behaviors or some proxy of such behaviors, and thus higher individual entrepreneurial orientation scores indicate that individuals have high entrepreneurial or venture creation intention. Therefore, by applying such entrepreneurial attitudes to individuals, innovativeness refers to an individual skills and posture in finding new opportunities and new solutions, which involves an experimentation and creativity that result in new goods and services or improving technological processes (Wang, Yen, Hong, & Tsai, 2001).

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Entrepreneurship Education Entrepreneurial Orientation

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Venture Creation Intention

Figure 1: The Proposed model Similarly, risk-taking is concerned with individual bold actions by venturing into unknown, borrowing heavily, and committing considerable resources to ventures into uncertain market environments (Rauch, Wiklund, Lumpkin, & Frese, 2009). Lastly, proactiveness is associated with individual skills and attitudes of seeking first mover advantage and forwardlooking behaviors, as well as efforts to shape a business environment thereby introducing a product or process ahead of competitors (Lyon, Lumpkin, & Dess, 2000). Nevertheless, Scholars (e.g., Harris, Gibson, & Taylor, 2007) noted that entrepreneurial postures might be influenced by teaching and classroom experiences. However, this may not be so in Nigeria, giving the fact that the country’s educational system is more of theoretical other than practical aspects, and thus most Nigerian institutions of higher learning produce graduates with only education and skills to be employed and have no or a little basics skills and attitudes to create their own entrepreneurial businesses (Olorundare & Kayode, 2014). Hence, Ayatse (2013) sees the relevance of collaboration between practicing entrepreneurs and Nigerian institutions of higher learning so as to impart Nigerian students with such entrepreneurial skills and postures, and according to him, lack of such interaction is what prevents the policy on entrepreneurship education from yielding the anticipated desired results in the country. Consequently, this study posits that Nigerian students who have been indoctrinated with such entrepreneurial behaviors are more likely to have higher intention of venture creation as higher scores of entrepreneurial orientation indicate higher intention of venture creation ©JOMATECH

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intention as argued by Bolton and Green (2012). Therefore, this study proposes that: 2: Entrepreneurial orientation moderates the relationship between entrepreneurship education and the intention of Nigerian students towards venture creation 3. Implications By implication, this study posits that when Nigerian students are well trained and insinuated with the aforementioned entrepreneurial behaviors, they would be acquainted and addicted with such entrepreneurial behaviors, which of course change their mindsets toward business venture creation. Therefore, this would highly mitigate the high rate of graduates’ unemployment, high rate of crimes among jobless graduates in the country, higher dependency on government and white collar jobs, and higher corruption in recruitment and staffing processes due to the large number of applicants. More so, the higher involvement of teeming Nigerian graduates into entrepreneurial activities would curtail the high rate of unemployment for both skilled, semiskilled, and skill labors in the country. It would also improve the local technology, as well as general economic growth thereby reducing the rate of higher dependency on foreign goods that can easily be produced in Nigeria by our local entrepreneurs. 4. Limitations, Directions for Future Research and Conclusions One of the major limitations of this study is that the study is limited by conceptualizing only a framework using the aforesaid variables of interest without conducting empirical research. Hence a future study is needed to empirically examine the proposed relationships on the platform of an appropriate theory using a set of data on a sample of Nigerian students. Second, some other factors, such as business opportunities and access to capital, which may be relevant in venture creation, have not been taken into consideration in conceptualizing this article’s framework. The reason why this paper has not considered such other factors is that this study concentrates basically on primary factors that change students’ mindsets and intentions

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towards venture creation other than those secondary factors, which may not necessarily influence intention and change mindset. Nevertheless, it may be of higher importance to incorporate all other relevant variables in future study and examine their impacts empirically. In conclusion, this article remains a vital write-up to the Nigerian government, academic researchers and teachers, as well as students. Moreover, the paper suggested some important gaps that open-up avenues for future research. References: Agbonlahor, A. A. (2016). Challenges of entrepreneurial education in Nigerian universities: towards a repositioning for impact. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 6(1), 208–214. doi:10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n1p208 Agboola, B. M. (2010). Entrepreneurial education in Nigeria tertiary institutions and sustainable development. Benin. Ayatse, F. A. (2013). Driving entrepreneurship education in Nigeria: issues and challenges. International Journal of Business and Management Review, 1(4), 83–90. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004 Bolton, D. L., & Green, B. (2012). Individual entrepreneurial orientation: development of a measurement instrument. Education and Training Training, 54(2/3), 219–233. doi:10.1108/00400911211210314 Covin, J. G., & Slevin, D. P. (1989). Strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environment. Strategic Management Journal, 10, 75–87. Covin, J. G., & Slevin, D. P. (1991). A conceptual model of entrepreneurship as firm behaviour. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 7–25. Duze, C. (2011). Entrepreneurship education in Nigeria. African Research Review, 4(4), 78–82. doi:10.4314/afrrev.v4i4.69228 Ediagbonya, K. (2013). The roles of entrepreneurship education in ensuring economic empowerment and development. Journal of Business Administration and Education, 4(1), 35–46. ©JOMATECH

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Enu,

D. B. (2012). Enhancing the entrepreneurship education in Nigeria. American Jouranal of Social Issues & Humanities, 2(4), 232–239. Harris, M. L., Gibson, S. G., & Taylor, S. R. (2007). Examining the Impact of Small Business Institute Participation on Entrepreneurial Attitudes. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 18(2), 57–75. Ikpesu, O. C. (2008). Reforming Nigerian higher education through entrepreneurship for the attainment of millenium development goals. Knight, G. a. (1997). Cross-cultural reliability and validity of a scale to measure firm entrepreneurial orientation. Journal of Business Venturing, 12(3), 213–225. doi:10.1016/S0883-9026(96)00065-1 Lyon, D. W., Lumpkin, G. T., & Dess, G. G. (2000). Enhancing entrepreneurial orientation research: Operationalizing and measuring a key strategic decision making process. Journal of Management, 26(5), 1055–1085. Mambula, C. (2002). Perceptions of SME growth constraints in Nigeria. Journal of Small Business Management, 40(1), 58–65. doi:10.1111/1540-627X.00039 Miller, D. (1983). The correlates of entrepreneurship in three types of firms. Management Science (pre-1986), 29(7), 770. doi:0025-1909/83/2907/0770S01.25 Olorundare, A. S., & Kayode, D. J. (2014). Entrepreneurship education in Nigerian universities: a tool for national transformation. Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education, 29, 155–175. Oseifuah, E. K. (2010). Financial literacy and youth entrepreneurship in South Africa. African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, 1(2), 164–182. doi:10.1108/20400701011073473 Rauch, A., Wiklund, J., Lumpkin, G. T., & Frese, M. (2009). Entrepreneurial orientation and business performance: An assessment of past research and sugestions for the future. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 1–54.

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Wang, H., Yen, Y., Hong, J., & Tsai, Y. (2001). Emperical evidence between corporate entrepreneurial orientation and performance: A perspective of multidimensional construct. Wiklund, J., & Shepherd, D. (2005).

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Entrepreneurial orientation and small business performance: a configurational approach. Journal of Business Venturing, 20(1), 71–91. doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2004.01.001

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