Influence of Contextual Factors on Entrepreneurial Intention of University Students : The Nigerian Experience

The idea of owning personal businesses has been of serious contention between the young graduates and the government globally due to high rate of unemployment in most economies of the world and it has been argued that contextual factors in relation to educational support, structural and informal networks have contributed enormously to the development of entrepreneurial intention. As such, this study tried to ascertain whether there is significant relationship between perceived educational supports and entrepreneurial intention of university students and also to determine the effect of informal networks on entrepreneurial intention of university students. Four hundred copies of questionnaire were administered to 2 selected universities in Lagos and Ogun state to get the primary data. The study found that entrepreneurial educational support has significant relationship with the entrepreneurial intention of university students. Also the study discovered that informal network have positive significant effect on entrepreneurial intention of university students to start their desired businesses. The study recommends that universities should establish entrepreneurial development centers that will serve as a platform where students with entrepreneurial intentions can start expressing their intentions and that parents, friends and relations of these students should provide necessary supports thereby helping the nation to reduce its unemployment and crime rate.


Introduction
Based on the high-ceilinged unemployment rate in Nigeria, self employment and small _____________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Akinbola Olufemi Amos, Ogunnaike Olaleke Oluseye and Amaihian Augusta Bosede (2015), Journal of South African Business Research, DOI: 10.5171/2015.750622 is not just only to deal with the already sizeable unemployed graduates, but also of creating a space for the new entrants into the labour force.Crucial to this situation is the fact that the training and education which students of higher institutions of learning receive has not been fully successful in equipping them with desirable skills and competencies required for job creation and self employment (Madumere-obike, 2006, Amaewhule, 2007 andNwangwu, 2007).The realization of this critical fact lie behind the directive of the Federal Government to all tertiary education regulatory agencies to establish necessary mechanisms for the introduction, development and sustenance of entrepreneurial culture among Nigerian youths and since the education offered by a university mostly influences the career selection of students, universities can be seen as potential sources of future entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship is a contemporary concept and is at present recognized as an emerging field of interest globally; it has captured the attention of scholars and policy makers in the last decades.The main rationale of this concern is the growing need for entrepreneurs who can accelerate economic development through generating new ideas and converting them into profitable ventures.Entrepreneurial activities are not only the incubators of technological innovation; they provide employment opportunity and increase competitiveness also (Zahra, 1999).Since the support of entrepreneurship is crucial to stimulate growth in "a growthconscious economy.In such a learning process, both policy makers and scholars should focus on the question of why some people opt for an entrepreneurial career and others do not.
There has been growing interest in undertaking and increasing actions to promote and support the idea of entrepreneurship as an attractive alternative to wage employment among students around the globe.Despite these efforts, Hisrich and Peters (2002) stated that many students do not consider entrepreneurship as a career and that very few will start a business immediately after graduation .Given the importance of new business start-ups to the economy; this poses a serious problem to the society.The role of students in promoting entrepreneurship remains largely unstudied.Hence, this study aims to fill the gap by investigating the entrepreneurial intention of university students, particularly in the light of some contextual factors like entrepreneurial education access and informal networks of family and friends that may aid business start up.Also, Past studies has shown that some of the factors responsible for this lack of consideration includes but are not limited to the following: fear of business failure, inaccessibility to start up capital, inadequate infrastructure, lack of enabling environment to mention a few.The effect of these factors on entrepreneurial intention of university students is worth investigating.Lastly, Gorman, Hanlon and King (1997) reviewed series of the literature in entrepreneurship education confirming that preliminary evidence suggests entrepreneurial attributes can be influenced through entrepreneurship education however stated that a stronger empirical focus was required in future research.

Concept of Entrepreneurship and its Significance
Thomas & Norman (2008) found that an entrepreneur is one who creates a new business in the face of risk and uncertainty for the purpose of achieving profit and growth by identifying significant opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalize on them.Johnson (2001) described that today the entrepreneur is an innovator or developer who recognizes and seizes opportunities, converts those opportunities into workable or marketable ideas, adds value through time, effort, money or skills, assumes the risks of the competitive marketplace to implement these ideas and realizes the rewards from these efforts.
According to Duygulu (2008) the term "entrepreneur" has often been applied to the founder of a new business, or a person "who started a new business where was there was none before".Entrepreneurship can be found in the literature describing business processes.Boxill (2003) described the term entrepreneurship comes from the French verb 'entreprendeur' and the German word 'unternehmen', both of which literally means 'undertake'.Thus, the entrepreneur is an undertaker someone who undertakes to make things happen, and does.As a generic term, entrepreneurship has been used in a variety of contexts and it covers a broad range of interchangeable meanings and situations.
Contextual influences are broadly defined as those factors which pertain to one's environment or an individual's interplay with the external environment.It is an extended range of cultural, social, economical, political and technological factors that surrounds a person.According to Bird (1988), intentionality can be defined as a state of mind directing a person's attention, experience and action towards a specific goal or a path to achieve something.It can also be said to be a state of mind when people wish to create new firm or a new value driver inside an existing organization.In this research work, entrepreneurial intention was narrowed down to the intention to start up a firm or be self-employed.
Also network consists of a series of formal and informal ties between the central actor and other actors in a circle of acquaintances and represents channels through which entrepreneurs get access to the necessary resources for business start-up, growth and success (Kristiansen, 2003).The informal networks consist of all the direct, face-to-face contacts the entrepreneur has including friends, family, close business associates, former teachers and all possible information channels between individuals, a personal network of relationships or alliances, which entrepreneurs develop between them and others in their society and formal network refers to banks, entrepreneurial consulting agencies, law firms, insurance companies, cooperatives, trade association and society of graduated students.

The Role of Education in Entrepreneurial Intentions
The first dimension of the model is educational support.It is obvious that professional education in universities is an efficient way of obtaining necessary knowledge about entrepreneurship.Therefore, academic institutions might have critical roles in the encouragement of young people to choose an entrepreneurial career.However, they are sometimes accused of being too academic and encouraging entrepreneurship insufficiently (Gibb 2003;Gibb 1996;Gibb, 1993).
In order to overcome this insufficiency, most universities have offered entrepreneurship courses or programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels.In the literature, some studies analyse how these entrepreneurial interests of universities affect entrepreneurial inclination of students.The study of Gorman, Hanlon and King (1997) showed that entrepreneurial attributes can be positively influenced by educational programmes.In their study, Kolvereid and Moen (1997)

Entrepreneurial intentions
and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), originally referred to as Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977).
According to Garavan and O'Cinneide (1994), the different stories of successful entrepreneurs stimulate the debate on the famous paradigm of "the entrepreneurs are made or born".Obviously, it is difficult to ignore the possible impacts of genetics or personality traits.As it is discussed in the next section, the literature provides many studies, which suggest the impacts of these factors.However, in the social sciences, it is a more accurate way to explain every phenomenon with taking into account the interactions of various factors, rather than considering the impact of a single factor.Therefore, even if genetics or personality traits have some impacts on entrepreneurial inclination, it might be better to consider the impact of some contextual factors..." According to Leonard (1984), ownermanagers acknowledge the significance of networks: Networks can be defined 'as the composite of the relationships in which small firms are embedded, which serve to link or connect small firms to the environments in which they exist and conduct their businesses' (Shaw and Conway, 2000).

Entrepreneurial
Intention Among University Students Uduak and

Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)
This study is situated within an existing theory-the theory of planned Behaviour-that provided the necessary guide and framework in conducting the study.The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), was derived from the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), which states that behavioural intentions are formed by one's attitude toward that behaviour and one's subjective norms -(i.e.influence by significant others -e.g.parents, peers, role models).In turn, both attitudes and subjective norm are influenced by evaluations, beliefs, and motivation formed through one's unique individual environments.Theory of Planned Behaviour, assumes that most human behaviour results from an individual's intent to perform that behaviour and their ability to make conscious choices and decisions in doing so (volitional control).The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) presents intention dependent upon three factors: (1) the individual's attitude toward the behaviour (do I want to do it?),(2) subjective norm (do other people want me to do it?),and (3) perceived behavioural control (do I perceive I am able to do it and have the resources to do it?).The third factor, perceived behavioural control is assumed to capture non motivational factors that influence behaviour.Combined, these three factors represent an individual's actual control over _____________________________________________________________________________ ______________ Akinbola Olufemi Amos, Ogunnaike Olaleke Oluseye and Amaihian Augusta Bosede (2015), Journal of South African Business Research, DOI: 10.5171/2015.750622behaviour and are usually found to be accurate predictors of behavioural intentions; in turn intentions are able to account for a substantial proportion of variance in behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).Source: Ajzen, (1991) In the model in Figure 1, intention is shown as the immediate antecedent of behaviour, however in reality we know that not all intentions are ultimately carried out.In some cases an individual may not be able to follow through with the desired behaviour due to external factors, despite having the intention to do so.

Methodology
For the purpose of this research, the population of the study comprised of university students.The scope of this study is Lagos and Ogun state in Nigeria due to the large number of universities in the two states.Final year students of a public university in Lagos State and a private university in ogun state were selected as population in which samples were drawn.
The contextual factors considered in the study were limited to both the educational support and informal networks.
A sample size of four hundred (400) students out of the six hundred and ninety five (695) students population of the selected universities constituted the sample size of the study using Yamane (1974)

Discussion on Findings
The result of hypothesis one which confirms that there is a significant relationship between entrepreneurial intention of university students and perceived educational support agrees with the submission of Uduak and Aniefiok (2011)

Conclusion and Recommendations
In this study, it has been established that contextual factors does have an effect on the entrepreneurial intention of university students in Ogun State.The first factor is the educational support that indicates mainly a supportive university environment shows that if a university provides adequate knowledge and inspiration for entrepreneurship, the possibility of choosing an entrepreneurial career might increase among students.This finding confirms the key role of education in the development of entrepreneurial intention.In the light of current study, it can be said that entrepreneurship can be fostered as a result of the learning process.
The second factor which also emerged very significant is the informal network.Social ties are significant for a person more so a university student.Since people are more integrated into the society; family, relatives, friends and course mates will most likely influence a career selection decision in a young person.
Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made:

Informal network
Parents, friends and relations should endeavour to give appropriate moral, professional and financial supports to youths with entrepreneurial intentions.

Government
The paper also recommended that government should provide necessary support for quality teaching of entrepreneurship in Nigerian Universities as well as providing enabling environment for entrepreneurial practices.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework of the Effect of Contextual Factors on Entrepreneurial Intention