RELEVANCE
OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO THE ECONOMICS DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA
Entrepreneurship’s role for the development and well-being of
society has also been recognized by academic researchers and policymakers
(Bosma, Wennekers, & Amorós, 2011). Entrepreneurship has assumed a
proactive approach to tackle the ever-changing business environment of the 21st
century, building sustainable development in the country, supporting the
economic growth of countries, creating new job opportunities for young
graduates, and societal well-being. Keeping in view its significance, developed
countries and under-developed countries have shifted their focus towards
entrepreneurship (Bosma, 2011; GEM, 2013; Volkmann, 2009).
Petrin (1994) discusses the importance of seeing the link between
individual entrepreneurial aspirations and societal goals because all genuine
entrepreneurship is social, with the entrepreneur aiming to provide a service
or good that can capture a share of the market or even create a new market. This
argument can be made even more forcefully within the context of
entrepreneurship and rural development where the creation of rural enterprises
can create employment, reduce poverty and reduce the need for social support.
Hence, the motivations of the people who start new businesses should not be
unusually highly individualistic or focused solely on self-fulfillment
(Benjamin-Schonberger, 2010).
The motivation for entrepreneurs in starting new businesses should
transcend the improvement of their standard of living, the presence of an
individual personal plan and the attainment of higher social status and
respect, and rather drive at helping the general society.
On its part, ethnic identification of sociological enterprise
tries to explain entrepreneurship as a process where the individual’s
sociological back-ground is one of the decisive “push” factors in becoming an
entrepreneur (Reynolds, 1991). This is because individuals draw their values
from the ethnic group they are associated with and are mostly influenced by
such groups e.g. family, co-workers or broader groups such as occupational
groups among whom they draw inspirations and experience.
Young
entrepreneurs can achieve their individual or collective visions through
concrete actions.
Entrepreneurship has
the potential to create youth employment and integrate the youth into the
economic mainstream while addressing some of the socio-psychological and
delinquency problems that arise from joblessness (Chigunta, 2002; Curtain,
2001). Youth enterprises provide marginalized youth with a sense of ‘meaning’
and ‘belonging’, shape their identity and encourage others to treat and accept
them as equal members of society and also promotes innovation and resilience as
they are encouraged to find new solutions, ideas and methods of doing things
through experience-based learning (OECD, 2001; White & Kenyon, 2000 cited
in Chigunta, 2002). This requires the youth to be resourceful, have initiative,
imagination, enthusiasm, dash, ambition, energy, vitality, boldness and courage
(Schnurr & Newing, 1997:2 cited in Chigunta, 2002) in order to fight global
youth unemployment. It is estimated that youth unemployment constitutes 47
percent (88 Million) of global unemployment, making the youth vulnerable to social
exclusion (ILO, 2005a).
Globally,
self-employment is an important source of employment, livelihoods and economic
dynamism (OECD, 2001). Effective youth entrepreneurship education prepares
young people to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become
entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable
communities (Chigunta, 2002). One important thing is that young entrepreneurs
gain a sense of accomplishment that comes from knowing that they did something
useful with little or no supervision (Johanson & Vahlne, 2003) and is the
greatest reason to raise a young entrepreneur.
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