A DISCOVERY ON THE DETERMINANTS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AMONG GRADUATES IN NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In recent years, entrepreneurship education has been developing steadily but unevenly in most countries. In the United State for example, which has been a trailblazer and leader in the field, the last decade has been described as an important era, with a significant increase in student interest (Fiet 2001a) the figure tend to support this statement.
In 1971, only 16 colleges and universities in the U.S. offered entrepreneurship education programs, while today, there are more than 800.
Entrepreneurship is an under search topic in the social sciences and especially in economics. It was not always so, Schumpeter discusses the role of entrepreneurship in the process of economic development at length. He imagines the entrepreneur as a creative-driven individual who finds a new combination of factors of production” to discover and develop a new product, to apply a strategy for a new market or design new technology.
The United States has a comparatively long tradition of fostering entrepreneurs at universities and business schools. While the first entrepreneurship courses were taught at Harvard Business School as early as the 1930s, this field has seen increasing attention since the 1970s. By 1990, 400 universities in America were already estimates exceed 700 (Vesper and Macmillan 1988: Hills and Morris 1988, Fiet 2001) progress in this field has thus been extremely impressive.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Throughout the world, a student in entrepreneurship as a career choice is growing Brenneret 1991, Hart et Harrison, 1992, while interest in traditional professional employment in big business is gradually declining (Kovereld 1996), the orientation and behaviors of student and young graduates are influenced by a number of personal and environmental factors.
Under uncertainly, out came may be characterized by an expected value which summarizes the potential outcomes of the probability of their occurring. Business profits are typically an uncertain function of the work effort extended by the entrepreneur, with an expected profit level for each effort level surrounded by a variance of profit outcomes due to the impact of unexpected changes in consumer preferences competition price, and product offerings, macro-economic variables and so on.
This profit variance introduces the role that additional remuneration for that effort profit variance is considered by potential entrepreneurs who asses stability (certainty of ensuring a paycheck every month avoiding rise, maintaining current lifestyle) before making a decision to set up a new venture (Amit, et al 1996) given the myriad of factors that surrounds the decision-making frame of a young Nigeria graduate who intends to put a career in entrepreneur, it is imperative that answers be found to the following questions. What are the attitudes influences, their intention toward becoming entrepreneurs? What are the subjective norms underlying their intention of becoming entrepreneurs? What control beliefs influence their intentions
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