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 U.S. offered entrepreneurship education program, 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 the entrepreneurship in the process of economic development at length. He imagine the entrepreneur as a creative driven individual who find new combination of factors of production” to discover and develop a new product, to apply strategy for a   new market or design a new technology.

          The United States have 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, 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 behaviours 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 out comes 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 changed 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 pay check every month avoiding rise, maintaining current life  style) 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 entrepreneur? What control beliefs influence their intentions?

1.3    OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

1. To determine and stimulate the need for achievement on entrepreneurial intentions.
2. To encourage and determine the attitude of young Nigeria graduates towards self employment.
3. To determine entrepreneurial intention towards Nigeria’s graduates
4. To determine what control belief influence their intention.

1.4    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

          Economic theories of entrepreneurship usually assume, not surprisingly, that entrepreneurs have economic aspirations principally those of profit maximization. However, a few early theories recognized that entrepreneurs may have non-economic aspirations as well, such as the desire to innovation. The venture into areas untouched by others, the desire to develop markets triumph over others in the market and dynastic aspirations.

          The notion that entrepreneurs are embedded in a social framework is central to much work by sociologists (Gramoveter, 1985). Furthermore, as Dyer and Handler (1994) observe, entrepreneurial aspiration focus on entrepreneurial theories tend to focus on entrepreneur at business entry rather than in the business cycle.

          In general, the implication and application of the theory of planned behaviour in the field of entrepreneurship and numerous and extremely promising. Some of the theory’s implication are related to education and training. Since the early 1980’s researchers have been able to identify the role played by education and teaching variables in the development of perceptions about the desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurial behaviour.

          In recognition of the owning a  business can change one’s life, this paper guaranteed and inventory of economic  psychological factors then can be used to develop a model of the determinants of entrepreneurial intentions.

1.5    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

          For the purpose of the proper analysis of the subject matter the scope of the study is given in two parts, the spatial and temporal scope. Spatially the study is limited to young graduates in Nigeria. Temporally, it was conducted over a three week period.

1.6    DEFINITION OF TERMS

Entrepreneur: an entrepreneur is a person who creates a new business in the face of risk and uncertainty for the purpose of achieving profits and growth by identifying opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalize on them Zimmerer and Scarborough (2002).

Proactive: a person controlling a situation by making things happens rather than waiting for things to happen and reacting to them. 

Autonomy: this is the ability to act and make decisions without being controlled by anyone else.

Entrepreneurial Behaviour:  this factor corresponds to the attitudes towards the behaviour, and is dependent on beliefs relating to the behaviours positive or negative impacts.

Attitude: the way you think and feel about some body or something, the way that you behave towards somebody or something that show how you feel.

Spatial: this is relating to space or position, size, shape etc. of things.

Temporal: this is a particular quality in one’s personality. This is a strong desire to have or do some thing.

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