Entrepreneurial Training and Business Sustainability of Beneficiaries of FIIRO Technologies

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Abstract

Entrepreneurs play significant roles in the growth and development of world economies, particularly 
since the 19th century. They spur industry transformations, create entirely new markets, advance wealth 
generation, create social change and help in community development. All these aims to give better life 
and end poverty in all its forms and everywhere. Entrepreneurship training is a structured program that 
aims to equip participants with the necessary skillset and mindset for identifying and launching new 
business ventures. The objective of this study is to investigate entrepreneurial training as a determinant 
of business sustainability in Nigeria. For this purpose, 100 beneficiaries of FIIRO technologies are 
selected for this study bearing the following criteria in mind: must have been trained at FIIRO between 
2002 and 2020; must have established an enterprise based on technology(ies) acquired at FIIRO; must 
have been in business for at least two years with a product in the market and must have made the list of 
100 FIIRO Successful entrepreneurs. The study adopts cross sectional research design approach and 
purposive and convenience sampling techniques. The instrument for primary data collection is 6-point 
Likert Scale questionnaire. The questionnaires are self administered to the trainees. Financial 
measures namely profitability, sales growth and number of employees are used to measure business 
sustainability while entrepreneurial training factors are measured by training content, training budget, 
trainer's competency, entry behaviour of trainees and trainee's exit behaviour. The data collected are 
analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) to examine the possible effect of the 
independent variable on the dependent variable. The findings reveal that entrepreneurial training 
2 factors have significant and positive effect on business sustainability (r = 0.522, R = 0.581, R = 0.340 
p<0.05 and F = 199.751 at p = 0.0000). Therefore, it is recommended that entrepreneurs should 
embrace training as a matter of policy. Decision makers and management consultants should consider 
entrepreneurial training as pivotal to enterprise growth and development to enhance business 
sustainability in Nigeria.