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STUDENTS PERSONALITY TRAITS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

The advent of globalisation has become an eye opener to policy makers and academics. It has made the people to assess themselves on what they can do for themselves to earn a living and be their own boss rather than helping someone to achieve his or her business goals. In Nigeria, the state of the economy has made Nigerians especially the graduates and the youths at large to start identifying ideas and opportunities that will result to economic and financial gain for them in the nearest future. This is as a result of high rate of unemployment in Nigeria. Thus, there is need for knowledge in entrepreneurship by the undergraduates before they graduate to face the challenges in Nigerian economy.

Entrepreneurship is tagged as an important catalyst of economic growth, productivity and development which is the reason its importance was perceived in recent time by academicians, specialists and policymakers (Iqual, Melhem & Kokash, 2012). As such, entrepreneurship has become a word of the day. Policymakers, economists, academics and even students are talking about it. Seminars, conferences and workshops are being organised every year across the world which emphasised the importance of entrepreneurship to the economy of a country, society as well as individual development (Béchard & Toulouse, 2004). The main reason for this is that entrepreneurship education constitutes the bedrock of a nation’s growth, economic development and also has the capacity to manage the nation's aggressiveness in confronting the expanding difficulties of globalization (Schaper & Volery 2009).

Entrepreneurship is considered an important contributor to monetary efficiencies, job creation, innovation, and social welfare, etc.,(Naushadand  Malik, 2018).  Nowadays, the importance of entrepreneurship cannot be underestimated worldwide, especially in the present circumstances where the joblessness rate is increasing caused by the global economic crisis (Ullah, 2016). People that are open to the idea of entrepreneurship report extraordinary advantages incorporating opportunity in basic leadership, higher self-regard, challenge and more prominent feeling of control and the rundown continues forever (Nickels, McHugh & McHugh, 2010). Bakotic and Kruzic (2010) propose that business has turned out to be one of the primary issues in government arrangement of the vast majority of modern nations and creating nations. Thus, this phenomenon has made Nigeria a country that integrates entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education in the academic curriculum in the higher institution both private and public. This entrepreneurship education in higher institution has attracted policy makers, academics, industrialists, economists, and students’ attention on how to be an entrepreneur

It is worthy to note that entrepreneurial intention is one of the most significant parts of entrepreneurship process (Bulsara, Ghamdi & Porey, 2010). Mangasini and Damian (2014) argued that entrepreneurial intention of individuals including undergraduates can be improved through exposure and predisposition to higher institution support by entrepreneurship education and training. This is also supported by Ogundele, Akingbade and Akinlabi (2012), who in their study confirm that entrepreneurship education changes people’s mindset, self-efficacy and attitude to become entrepreneurs; problem solvers and exploit opportunities for individuals and nation’s development are the channels to achieve that.

According to Wu & Wu (2008), Entrepreneurial intention is an individual’s personal desire to form a new firm or a new driver that’s adds value within existing organizations. Quan, (2012), argues that, entrepreneurship intentions can be categorized into to two; (a) impulsive and (b) deliberate. Impulsive entrepreneurial intention is known as intention without realistic control of business resources and can be influenced by personal characteristic, culture, or demographic factors. Deliberate entrepreneurial intention on the other hand refers to the willingness of the individual to venture into business due to the feasibility of entrepreneurial behaviors. It basically depends on external resources such as prior experience or network building.

Behind the accomplishment of a business endeavor are the entrepreneur and the capabilities required to bear on his business effectively in a continually changing or dynamic business environment, improve his competency, orientation and self-efficacy (Oyeku, 2014). According to Lejarraga and Pindard (2013), Hmieleski and Baron (2008) as well as Fitzsimmons and Douglas (2005) the optimism and overconfidence of an entrepreneur leads to entrepreneurial self-efficacy, however one is forced to ask the question whether the qualities of the business person communicated as entrepreneurial self-efficacy could guarantee his/her business achievement particularly in unforgiving and disagreeable business environment in which SMEs work in creating and underdeveloped nations.

Education is a legacy a country can give to her citizen. Education is an important right that should be accorded to all human beings solely by reason of being human (Chiraka, 2012). The idea of enhancing entrepreneurship through education has also received increasing attention from Universities and other institutions of higher learning in many countries (Iqual, Melhem & Kokash, 2012).Luthje and Franke (2002) thought about scholastic and non-scholarly business engineers. They found that the greater part of the scholarly entrepreneurs made new pursuits in cutting edge enterprises though non-scholastics established their organizations basically in non-creative generation and administration divisions.

Besides, business engineers with University training obviously make higher interests in their organizations than non-scholarly business people. Scott and Twomey (1988) saw that undergraduate students with the guide of an entrepreneurial education system, would benefit from outside intervention to consider entrepreneurship as a vocation. So also, Postigo, Lacobucci, and Tamborini, (2006) recognized the centrality of University education and the part it plays in entrepreneurial movement. This expressed that it is exceptionally fundamental to draw in the youthful and taught to business enterprise, particularly as present mechanical patterns are tending towards a learning based environment. In any case, Iqual, Melhem and Kokash (2012) opines that entrepreneurship education and business know-in what can influence entrepreneurial tendencies just on the off chance that they change key states of mind and observations, for example, perceived attractive quality of independent work and perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

Polytechnic play a significant role in attitude of students towards entrepreneurship (Kume , Hmieleski and Baron, 2013). According to Kume et’al (2013), entrepreneurship curriculum in Polytechnic is designed to catch the attentions of students towards being entrepreneurs after graduation. Thus, it could be said that Polytechnic education through entrepreneurship plays vital role in improving students’ attitude, personal values, technical abilities and self-efficacy in entrepreneurial activities. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2008) stated that entrepreneurship education is made up of

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