Investigating the Motivating Factors of Youths-Students Interest to Become Entrepreneurs: A Case of Anambra State, Nigeria

This study explored the factors that motivates the youth’s interest (intention) to become entrepreneurs by incorporating the personality attributes from the “Theory of planned behavior” and environmental factors, with some selected “control variables” (experience, gender, and age). A multivariate statistical technique was used to test the relationship between the variables using “Structural Equation Modeling” AMOS Package version 23. A sample of 400 students from Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu university in Anambra State, Nigeria was used to analyze the data. The results of the study indicated that attitude, self-efficacy, and subjective norms have a statistically significant effects on student’s entrepreneurial interest. The findings also indicated that entrepreneurial education has an impact on students’ attitude but has no obvious effect on intention. Apart from government support policy which was found to have statistical negative effect on intention, other external barriers have no effect on attitude and intention. Understanding these factors is important to make recommendations to the government and other relevant stakeholders to promote youths’ entrepreneurship in Nigeria. The importance of entrepreneurship is not only vital for economic growth but also for long term sustainable development. Through the vital information gained from investigating these motivating factors of youth’s interest to engage in entrepreneurship, the government and other important stakeholders can formulate effective policies to improve macroeconomic conditions to encourage university students to become entrepreneurs.