Perception of Job-Seeking Youths on Entrepreneurial Information Received in Ogun State

Perception of Job-Seeking Youths on Entrepreneurial Information Received in Ogun State

Obun-Andy, Maria Kisugu¹, Adeyemo, Julius², Jiboku, Olubisi Olusola³

^1,3Department of Mass Communication, Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State

²Department of Advertising Public Relation, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos State

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.913COM0035

Received: 08 August 2025; Accepted: 11 August 2025; Published: 10 September 2025

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurship is one of the keys to unemployment problem all over the world. However, the realization of the full potential of entrepreneurial opportunities has been dampened by the adoption of inappropriate information policies at different times. Previous studies focused on the challenges of entrepreneurship in Nigeria without paying adequate attention to the importance of entrepreneurial information. This study therefore examined the perception of job-seeking youths on entrepreneurial information in ogun state. The objectives were to; Find out the types of entrepreneurial information job-seeking youths receive in Ogun State and investigate the perception of Job-Seeking youths in Ogun State on entrepreneurial information received. The study was guided by source credibility theory while it adopted the descriptive research design and utilized quantitative data generated through survey method. A self-designed questionnaire was used as research instruments. Four hundred job-seeking youths were selected for the survey through purposive sampling technique. Quantitative data was analyzed using frequency and percentages. It was revealed that entrepreneurial information was adequately received (77.1%) by job-seeking youths in Ogun State. More than half of the job seekers (54.5%) perceived entrepreneurial messages as often difficult to understand. This study concludes that entrepreneurial information is not comprehensively and strategically disseminated among job-seeking youths in Ogun State and recommends that the Government of Ogun State, especially the Ministry of Information should partner with related employment generation Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as with media organizations to create and disseminate more entrepreneurial programmes in local languages.

Keywords: Information, entrepreneurship, job-seeking youths, perception, unemployment.

INTRODUCTION

Information is power. The extent to which people are informed may determine the extent to which they discover and utilize opportunities to solve day-to-day challenges (Derman, 2021). Although several Nigerian youths are confronted with the unemployment crisis, the reception of entrepreneurial information may transform youth from being job seekers to job creators. Therefore, information plays a major role in solving unemployment challenges (Dung, Bomney, Adlikari, & Miles, 2020). There are three main types of entrepreneurial information. These include information on idea conceptualization and skill acquisition, information on funding, and information on business management. Consistent reception of the three types of entrepreneurial information is important, as they offer entrepreneurs opportunities to review their business ideas, acquire new skills, gain access to increased funding for their businesses, and gain more knowledge on business management (Mbanefo & Obiajulu, 2017). Some entrepreneurs are unable to access loans from banks due to poor documentation and business records. Banks are interested in information on the amount invested, the profit made so far, and the current turnover of the business. They also want to see the record of banking transactions on the business as a yardstick to guarantee the entrepreneurs’ capacity for the required loan. An entrepreneur who has not been using banking services for business transactions will therefore not qualify to have access to loans. Entrepreneurs require such information for funding and the expansion of their capital base (Okezie., Alex, & Asoluka, 2013).

Several start-up businesses have also collapsed due to poor management. Entrepreneurs need information and knowledge on how to manage their businesses. Failure to gain the required knowledge is an invitation to the failure of the business. Therefore, information from the media and other sources becomes essential for the success of entrepreneurship (Odia & Odia, 2013). Entrepreneurship plays a major role in reducing unemployment rates while expanding the revenue base of governments. It also enhances economic and social developments, which constitute key areas of concern to the governments of various countries globally. An entrepreneur is an innovator, someone who transforms ideas into economically viable entities. Entrepreneurs are critical drivers of business growth and development (Durowoju, 2014).

More so, there are some pieces of entrepreneurial information often disseminated across several media platforms. For instance, some Nigerian newspapers like Business Day, Guardian, Blueprint, the Nation, Vanguard, Punch, and Daily Trust, among others, have columns dedicated to entrepreneurship information and education. Several entrepreneurial programmes are also aired on Nigerian television stations. Examples include Youths Island and Impact Today on OGTV, Business Morning and Money Show on Channels TV, Infotech Network and Activating Success on AIT, Giant in the Sun, and Labour Market on NTA. Lions’ Den is a major entrepreneurship programme funded by Eco Bank and aired on all the major national television stations in Nigeria. A radio entrepreneurship show titled Ecobank Half Hour was launched in 2021 across ten stations in Nigeria. They include Inspiration FM, Ray Power Kano, Odenigbo FM Obosi, Liberty FM Kaduna, and Love FM Port Harcourt, among others. Thus, it is necessary to find out the perception and the extent to which youths receive such entrepreneurship information to reduce the menace of unemployment in the country.

Information plays an important role in the success of every business endeavor. Getting the right information will enable youths to make appropriate decisions about their chosen businesses. It helps youths and aspiring entrepreneurs to be aware of the vast opportunities around them and how to harness them. While entrepreneurship has been rigorously interrogated, as noted by Olaore, Adejare, & Ekpenyong (2020), there is a dearth of information on the level of awareness of entrepreneurial information among job-seeking youths in Nigeria. Previous studies by Jones-Evans (2006), 2006; Okpara & Wynn (2007), Owolabi (2014), & Eriobunak & Nosakhare (2019) have examined challenges encountered by entrepreneurs in Nigeria and other developing countries and found that the failure rate of entrepreneurs in developing countries was higher as compared with developed countries due to problems such as lack of financial resources, inadequate knowledge, marketing problems, customer concentration, management and human resources, a lack of systems and controls, and technology skills. Similarly, several studies, like Erzetic (2008), Dushnitsky & Shaver (2009), & Ishaya (2015), have examined the relationship between information or knowledge and entrepreneurship and found low exposure to relevant information among entrepreneurs.

Dushnitsky & Shaver (2009) studied limitations to inter-organizational knowledge acquisition in corporate businesses using a survey comprising 1,646 startup ventures. It was found that most of the start-ups did not engage in relationships with bigger firms due to a fear of imitation. The two studies above focused on small and large start-ups and did not examine the entrepreneurial information acquisition patterns of job-seekers. Despite the avalanche of studies on entrepreneurship and information acquisition, only a few studies have examined the role of entrepreneurial information in the success or failure of entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Most of the studies paid little attention to how job seekers, especially youths, receive information about entrepreneurial initiatives. Thus, it becomes necessary to find out the types of entrepreneurial information job-seeking youths receive and their perceptions of the entrepreneurial information they receive.

Theoretical Framework

The study is anchored on the source credibility theory, which was developed by Karl Hovland and Walter Weiss in 1951. This theory posited that the extent to which an audience is persuaded by a message depends on how trustworthy the speaker or messenger is perceived to be. It states that people or recipients are more likely to be convinced if the source appears to be reliable. Hovland and Weiss’s research compared trusted and untrusted sources for the same persuasive message and found that sources perceived as trustworthy were more likely to receive messages than untrustworthy sources. This was done by testing whether it could influence a change in opinion. This study confirmed the assumption that reliable sources of information tend to have desirable effects on viewers. Anaeto, Onabajo, & Osifeso, (2012) found that the reliability of information sources can be classified into three models. These are the factor model, the functional model, and the constructivist model. Factor models can be used to determine how trustworthy recipients think a source of information is. In the functional model, credibility is considered to be the extent to which a source meets the receiver’s personal needs, whereas, in the constructivist model, credibility is considered to be the degree to which the receiver responds to the source’s suggestions. Therefore, job seekers are more likely to be persuaded if the message channel and message sources are seen as competent and trustworthy. The degree to which job-seekers believe and trust sources of entrepreneurial information may determine their acceptance of the messages without any doubt.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study adopted a descriptive research design with a survey method and questionnaire as instruments for data collection. The population for this study encompassed all job-seeking youths in Ogun State, ranging in age from 18 to 35 years old, with a population of 3,751,140 people as of the 2006 census. To ensure an adequate representation of the population, a multi-stage sampling technique was adopted. At the first stage, Ogun State was clustered into four political zones, namely: Egba, Ijebu, Remo, and Yewa. Abeokuta was selected to represent the Egba zone; Ijebu-Ode was selected to represent the Ijebu zone; Sagamu was selected to represent the Remo zone; and Ilaro was selected to represent the Yewa zone. The total population of the four political and administrative zones, according to the National Population Commission (2022), is 1,338,750. In selecting the sample size, Taro Yamane’s (1973) formula for calculating the sample size was adopted, and a sample size of 399.9 was arrived at, while approximately 400 respondents were selected for the survey. The 400 respondents were proportionally distributed across the four towns. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics frequency counts, tables and percentages.

Presentation of Results

Research question one: what are the types of entrepreneurial information job-seeking youths receive in Ogun State?

Table 1: Types of Entrepreneurial Information Received

Source: Field Survey, 2025

Research question two: What is the perception of Job-Seeking youths in Ogun State on entrepreneurial information received?

Table2: Perception of Entrepreneurial Information Received

 Source: Field Survey, 2025

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

Findings from Table 1 revealed that the majority of the job seekers agreed that they received entrepreneurial information on business funding and information on how to run a personal business, while about half of the respondents said they received information on government-based skills acquisition programmes. The findings align with Cooney (2012), who concluded that consistent reception of the three types of entrepreneurial information is important as they offer entrepreneurs opportunities to review their business ideas, acquire more skills, gain access to increased funding for the business, and gain more knowledge on business management. The media can help provide entrepreneurial ideas through information provision. Old ideas can be reviewed with innovations, while new ideas can be brought to the knowledge of entrepreneurs (Masoumeh, 2014). The media can also provide information on skill acquisition or even teach skills relevant to it. The findings also agreed with Kelley, Bosma, & Amorós, (2010) that information on business management is essential for the survival of entrepreneurial initiatives.

Findings from Table 2 revealed that less than half of the job seekers said entrepreneurial information was a mere scam or formality. About half of the job seekers said entrepreneurial information is for the rich and those connected, but more than a quarter of them disagreed. Also, more than half of the respondents said entrepreneurial information is adequate, while another agreed that entrepreneurial information is scarce, but more than a quarter disagreed. A little more than half of the job seekers said entrepreneurial information and messages are often too difficult to understand. More than half of the respondents said entrepreneurial information is not common on television and is scarce on radio and in newspapers, while more than a quarter disagreed that entrepreneurial information is not scarce in newspapers. Less than half of the respondents said entrepreneurial information and messages are only received in English.

The findings from Table 2 did not fully agree with those of Ihugba, Odia, & Njoku, (2013), who studied the influence of entrepreneurship education on students’ entrepreneurial intentions and found that the majority of students benefited from entrepreneurial courses taught in school, felt motivated to start personal businesses, and concluded that entrepreneurial information can stimulate interest in youths to create personal businesses instead of relying on the government.

The findings did not also agree with Olanipekun, Sokefun, & Akinlabi, ((2021), who investigated the impact of entrepreneurial skills acquisition on graduates’ self-employability status and found that entrepreneurial information impacts positively the career intentions of tertiary education students. On the contrary, the current findings from this study revealed that entrepreneurship is not yet fully embraced by job seekers in Ogun State, as nearly half of the job seekers said entrepreneurial information is a mere scam. About half of the job seekers also said entrepreneurial information is for the rich and those connected. Some factors could also be responsible for why the job seekers were in doubt. Going by the assumption of source credibility theory, which postulates that the extent to which the audience of a message is persuaded depends on the extent to which the speaker or messenger is perceived as credible, job seekers may be in doubt about the source of the message or due to failed promises from the government in the past. These perceptions imply that quite a large number of job seekers do not believe in entrepreneurship, and such a position may deter them from engaging in entrepreneurial initiatives. More so, entrepreneurial information may not make much impact on youth and job seekers until their mindsets are changed from negative to positive.

CONCLUSION

Based on the findings the following conclusions were drawn. The study established that job seekers received entrepreneurial information on funding of business; information on how to run a personal business and information on government-based skills acquisition programmes. Despite the types of entrepreneurial information received by job-seeking youths they still have a negative perception of entrepreneurial information due to distrust of the government

RECOMMENDATIONS

Government and the media should use both English and indigenous languages to disseminate entrepreneurial information to job seekers.  Government at all levels should empower job-seeking youths without any stress to put the knowledge gained into practice. There is also a need for the government and the media to emphasise the importance of entrepreneurship to stimulate the interest of job-seeking youths. To avoid distrust the government at all levels should keep to their promises

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