Written By 

George  Teetteh Hadjor

MSc Info. Sec.   Msc Tech Mgt & Entrep.

CISM, CRISC, CISA

Introduction

This research explores the potential of the Ghanaian youth (considered by this study to be between the ages of 15 – 35 years) to successfully perform in entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial activities, by examining the predictor factors of Willingness, Capability and Entrepreneurial Experience and their use in the development of an Entrepreneurial Potential construct. 

It follows a quantitative paradigm to survey 457 Ghanaian youth, with various experiential, social, and educational backgrounds and utilizes relevant contextual questionnaire items to develop relative scores for each of the above predictor factors. Based on these factors, an Entrepreneurial Potential score is computed.  

The study provides evidence to suggest that, the Ghanaian youth’s Entrepreneurial Potential is primarily influenced by their Capability ( with a Spearman’s Rho Correlation Coefficient of 0.894), in the form of nine key ability and behavioural characteristics, (usually associated with successful entrepreneurs) that they may possess. It is next influenced by a combination of relevant contextual experiences: personal, social network, educational & work (with a Spearman’s Rho Correlation Coefficient of 0.631) that they may have been exposed to and then, thirdly by their willingness to engage in entrepreneurship (with a Spearman’s Rho Correlation Coefficient of 0.369), which this study has found to be high at 77%, for the population sampled. 

The results also show that, as opposed to work carried by Bonev et al (2009) for example, educational level (i.e. graduate vs non-graduate) does not have any statistically significant influence on the Ghanaian youth’s Entrepreneurial Potential (P-Value = 0.367), with the male gender holding only a slim advantage over their female counterpart (P-value = 0.049, Median Entrepreneurial Potential: [Male = 9.45, Female  = 9.21]). Married youth, however, show a greater potential to succeed at entrepreneurship in the future (P-Value < 0.001, Median Entrepreneurial Potential: [Married = 9.89 , Unmarried = 9.23]), same as youth who choose entrepreneurship over employment as their preferred option for making a living (P-Value < 0.001, Median Entrepreneurial Potential: [Entrepreneurship = 9.54, Employment = 8.81]). Even though the programme studied in school (in the categories: “Business/Management”, “Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics” or “Other Courses) does not hold sway on the Ghanaian youth’s Entrepreneurial Potential (P-Value = 0.887), it does influence their willingness to engage in entrepreneurship (P-Value = 0.015), as well as count positively towards their educational experiences (P-Value  < 0.001).  

In developing a concept to objectively and comprehensively capture the somewhat elusive characteristic called Entrepreneurial Potential, this study has provided a basis for identifying high potential Ghanaian youth, who can be earnestly trained and seed-funded, using limited public funds, to successfully set up and run entrepreneurial ventures, as a mitigation strategy to deal with the teeming unemployment problem in the country.  

1.             Entrepreneurial Potential 

Entrepreneurial Potential has been conceptualized from the three predictor factors of Willingness, Capability, and Entrepreneurial Experience and the evidence reveals that Entrepreneurial Potential has a strong correlation with the factor’s Capability and Entrepreneurial Experience but a weak correlation with Willingness to engage in entrepreneurship. It is computed from the relative scores of these predictor variables with minimum, maximum, and median values shown in Table 4.17. Entrepreneurial Potential shows a statistically significant difference as a result of the factors: Gender, age range (15-24, 25-35 years), marital status (married/unmarried), livelihood preference (entrepreneurship/employment), year of graduation [2004-2008, 2009-2013, 2014-2018] and School-to-Work Transition categories [Transited, In-Transition, Not-yet-Transited]. 

2.             Willingness 

The Willingness of the Ghanaian youth to engage in entrepreneurship is averagely strong, with the minimum, maximum and median values of relative scores for Willingness shown in Table 4.17. This is evidenced by their preference for entrepreneurship (which is in the majority as 77% of the 457-youth sampled prefer a life of entrepreneurship against employment) as well as having on the average held almost five years’ interest in entrepreneurship. Altogether, however, this willingness to engage in entrepreneurship has a low influence on their Entrepreneurial Potential to become entrepreneurs by a factor 0.369. The Ghanaian youth’s willingness to engage in entrepreneurship exhibits a statistically significant difference as a result of the factors: marital status [married/unmarried], livelihood preference [entrepreneurship/employment], year of graduation [2004-2008, 2009-2013, 2014-2018], programme of study [STEM, Business/Management, Other Courses].  

3.             Capability 

With regards to the Capability of Ghanaian youth i.e., the exhibition of the requisite abilities and behaviours that count towards their entrepreneurship potential, almost all the respondents display strong abilities and behaviours. The abilities that are identified from literature which prove to have a strong internal consistency towards the Capability predictor factor are imagination, networking, leading, and persuading. Five behaviours are also identified to count towards the factor Capability, and these include being Curious, Proactive, Perseverant, Confident, and Flexible behaviours. The internal consistency of the Capability predictor variable, which is developed from the four abilities and five behaviours, is very high at a Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.951. This means all the questions asked truly to represent or reflect what the concept Capability is and stands for.   

Capability also has the strongest influence on the Ghanaian’s youth’s Entrepreneurial Potential at over 0.894, hence a need to put in measures to develop and strengthen these entrepreneurial abilities and behaviours to facilitate their performance at entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities in the future. The individual Capability sub-factors also mostly have an above-average influence on the Ghanaian youth’s Entrepreneurial Potential with Confident Behaviour been the standout sub-factor among the nine, at a correlation coefficient of 0.715. There is no statistically significant difference in Entrepreneurial Capacity as a result of any of the factors: gender(male/female), age range (15-24, 25-35 years), marital status(married/unmarried), educational level(graduate/non-graduate), livelihood preference(entrepreneurship/employment), year of graduation [2004-2008, 2009-2013, 2014-2018] and programme of study [STEM, Business/Management, Other Courses]. 

4.             Entrepreneurial Experience 

The results also show that the Ghanaian youth (i.e., 457 persons, with an average age of 25.6 years) generally has a lot of the relevant contextual experiences (be it personal, social network, education, or work) that counts positively towards their capacity to perform at entrepreneurship in the future, which is in part reflected by their high preference (77%) for entrepreneurship as a sustainable means of livelihood.  

These experiences include being a member of multiple groups or associations that helps them to expand on their opportunities and connect to resourceful persons in these groups. They are part of at least three groups, networks, or associations, and hold at least two leadership, executive or other important roles altogether in these groups. Their frequency in group or network meetings, which is on average fourteen times a year, helps to foster their social connections and opens up opportunities for them. Most have held onto a long-standing hobby or skill for about eight years and have been receiving some form of mentoring or at least have had a role model they look up to, for the past six years. When it comes to the world of work, the group sampled have received at least 3.3 years of employment and functioned for about 2.7 years as an entrepreneur or in self-employment, in one capacity or the other. Most have been exposed to entrepreneurship for over five years and have created or started at least one venture that was run for a least two years.  

All these experiences relevant to entrepreneurship have been shown (through the conceptual model development) to have a relatively good correlation with their Entrepreneurial Potential by a factor of 0.631. Dissecting these experiences, however, the individual experiences have a low correlation with Entrepreneurial Potential with Work Experience the highest among the lot at 0.489, followed by Social Network Experience at 0.454, Personal Experience at 0.424 and Educational Experience at 0.356. Taken together, the Entrepreneurial Experience (Personal, Social Network, Educational, Work) exhibits a statistically significant difference across different age ranges (15-24 and 25-35 years), marital status(married/unmarried), livelihood preference(entrepreneurship/employment), year of graduation [2004-2008, 2009-2013, 2014-2018] and School-to-Work Transition categories [Transited, In-Transition, Not-Yet-Transited].