¹Oladoke Sunday OLADEJI,²Tolulope Olubukola OYEDIJI,³Abimbola Oluwasogo ADENIKA,⁴Funmi Zainab AYINLA (PhD) ⁵Esther Yemi OTAYOKHE,⁶Wale Thomas AJIBOYE

¹Department of Business and Entrepreneurship Kwara State University, Malete

^2,3Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria

⁴Chief Admin Officer of Head Service Ilorin, Kwara State

^5,6Institute of Finance and Management Studies Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin

Youth empowerment prepares candidates for new venture initiation by transferring knowledge and developing relevant skills that improve the self-efficacy and effectiveness of the potential entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition is a relevant vehicle for economic development contributing to youth employment worldwide. Over a 50-year period, the Federal, State Government and Private Institutions have established many initiatives with the aim of promoting entrepreneurship. Examples of these Federal youth empowerment initiatives are N-power, Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin), Youth Empowering People (YEP), Graduate Internship Scheme (GIS), African Youth Empowerment Nigeria (AYEN), TraderMoni, Youth Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture in Nigeria (YISAN) and Presidential Youth Entrepreneurship Support (P-YES). The entrepreneurial components of the youth empowerment programmes of the state government are merely underplayed. Youth empowerment coordinators have not been able to engage empowerment beneficiaries to create and connect entrepreneurial components into an interactive and sustainable business start-up. The study adopts empirical study explored the entrepreneurial youth empowerment initiatives of youths to become self-employed after their initiatives from various empowerment schemes. Qualitative research is concerned with gaining an in-depth understanding of human issues. Findings show that business opportunity recognition influences business sustainability of small-scale businesses. This implies that impact of identifying business opportunities, entrepreneurial knowledge, spotting a particular business industry, transforming business ideas into reality and empowerment initiatives structures influence business sustainability of youth empowerment candidates. The study concludes that entrepreneurial empowerment initiatives have to prepare candidates for new venture opportunities by transferring knowledge and developing relevant skills. The study recommended that state government and private organizations (empowerment organizers) need to create an environment where youth empowerment beneficiaries can identify business opportunities. This will improve the performance by improving business sustainability.

Business Opportunity Recognition, Business Sustainability, Empowerment Initiatives, Entrepreneurship and Nigerian Youth

1) Abimbola, O. H., Olowu, A. U., & Paul, D. (2016). Youth unemployment and entrepreneurship prospects in Nigeria: A developmental perspective. Ife centre for psychological studies/services, Ile Ife, Nigeria ISSN: 1117-1421.

2) Barba-Sanchez, V., & Atienza-Sahuguillo, C. (2016). The development of entrepreneurship at school: the Spanish experience," Education and Training, 5(8), 783-796.

3) Brimah, B. A., Olanipekun, Wahid, D., Abu, Z., & Awe, O. I. (2021). Evaluation of youth employment and social support operation programme on unemployment reduction in Ilorin Metropolis. Hallmark University Journal of Management and Social Sciences (HUJMSS), 3(1), 142 -151.

4) Ćoćkalo, D., Đorđević, D., Nikolić, M., Stanisavljev, S., Terek, E., & Bakator, M. (2019). The needs of the economy and encouraging entrepreneurship of young people in Central Banat Region. Ninth International Symposium ''Engineering Management and Competitiveness –EMC, 2(1), 15-20.

5) Chikweche, T., & Fletcher, R. (2017). Researching at the bottom of the pyramid using qualitative methods. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 15, 242–267.

6) Chinman, M. J., & Linney, J.A. (1998). Toward a model of adolescent empowerment: Theoretical and empirical evidence. Journal of Primary Prevention, 1(8), 393-413.

7) Davidson, J., Paulus, T., & Jackson, K. (2016). Speculating on the future of digital tools for qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, Advance online publication, 95, 1-5.

8) Edoho, F. M. (2015). Entrepreneurship and social-economic development: African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, 6(2), 127-147.

9) Godwin, T. G., & Simon, I. A. (2021). Financing entrepreneurship development in Nigeria through informal financial institutions. International Journal of Research Science and Management. 8(2), 8–17.

10) faturoti, F. (2016). Assessing Osun youth empowerment scheme. Osun News. Retrieved from (http://www.osun.gov.ng). Accessed on 16th November 2018.

11) Isiaka S. B., Kadiri, I. B., Salman, A. & Alabi, A.T. (2017). Effect of entrepreneurial practices in managing small scale business or sustainable development in Nigeria: Empirical evidence. Journal of Sustainable Development Africa, 19(4), 104 – 123.

12) Jennings, L. B. (2008). Impact of youth empowerment scheme of poverty alleviation in Developing Economy. Press Ltd.

13) Healey, M. P., Bleda, M., & Querbes, A. (2021). Opportunity evaluation in teams: A social cognitive model. Journal of Business Venturing, 36(4), 2 – 12.

14) Ledford, M. K., Lucas, B., Diavaghi, J. M. S., & Ravel, P. (2013). Youth empowerment- The theory and its implementation. Youth empowered solutions.

15) Olowu, Y., & Aliyu, A. (2015). Impact of managerial skills on small-scale business performance and growth in Nigeria. European Journal of Business and Management, 7(5), 2222-2839.

16) Ossai, I. (2018) Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Lagos: Gold Land Business Co. Ltd.

17) Rappaport, J. (1987). Terms of empowerment/exemplars of prevention: Toward a theory for community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 15(2), 121–143.

18) Ren, J., Raghupathi, V., & Raghupathi, W. (2021). Exploring the subjective nature of crowdfunding decisions. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 1(5), 2-9.

19) Salamzadeh, A., & Roshandel Arbatani, T. (2020). Developing a Framework for Understanding How Media Entrepreneurs Act: An Actor-Network Perspective. In Contemporary Applications of Actor Network Theory, 8(1), 15-22.

20) Sathyamurthi, K., (2021). Entrepreneurship: Youth empowerment model. Contemporary Social Scientist, 2(2), 48-71.

21) Segun-Alalade A. F., Ibitoye, O. M., Alalade, O. A., Adesina, B. S., & Elisha-Nissi, D. O. (2021). Sustainability of the youth empowerment scheme (YES): A case study of agricultural and rural management training institute. Research on World Agricultural Economy, 2(2), 26 -31.

22) Su, Z., & Zarea, H. (2020). Policy for fostering entrepreneurship and innovation in creative industries. Nordic Journal of Media Management, 1(4), 583–588.

23) Tatiana, B, S., & Zrc, S. (2021). Conceptualizing youth empowerment entrepreneurship in European policy discourse. Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 3(3), 021–042.

24) Timmons, H. N. J. A., Eisenman, E., & O’Conno, A. (2015). Entrepreneurship education: A global consideration from practice to policy around the world. Executive Summary of the 2015 WISE Research Report. Qatar Foundation: Qatar.

25) Walter, M.H., Offiong, A.I., & Udoka, C.O. (2018). Venture capital financing and the growth of small and medium scale enterprises in Calabar Metropolis, Cross River State, Nigeria. World Journal of Innovative Research, 5(1), 7-16.

26) Wood, M. S. (2021). Entrepreneurial Opportunity: Bedrock in Entrepreneurship Research. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management. 9(7), 2 – 13.

27) Xavier, Ú. M., Manel, J.-M., Pere, S. M., & Jaume, T. B. (2020). Exploring the conceptualization and research of empowerment in the field of youth Entrepreneurship. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 22(4), 405–418.

Volume 05 Issue 12 December 2022

There is an Open Access article, distributed under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.