Pages: 112-118

Abstract

The study investigated the role of entrepreneurship studies to promote effective business management of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) among tertiary school graduates in Edo State. It determined the graduates’ effectiveness in diversity management in their business venture applying the entrepreneurial knowledge and skills they acquired from school training experiences. The study population comprised all the 40,333 graduates (2009/2010-2012/2013 Academic Sessions) from the target public institutions (universities, polytechnics and colleges of education). 450 respondents were selected using simple random sampling technique. One research question guided the study which was hypothesized. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study and a 20-item structured questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The instrument was validated by 4 experts and tested for its reliability using the Cronbach Apha and a reliability value of 0.89 was realized. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation to answer the research question and determine the homogeneity of respondents’ opinions while the formulated hypotheses were tested with ANOVA at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed among others that the entrepreneurial knowledge and skills the respondents acquired from their school training experiences facilitate their competencies in effective business management irrespective of customers’ cultural background, buying habits, brand loyalty, socio-economic status among others. Against this backdrop, it was recommended among others that government should provide incentives for entrepreneurship undergraduates and place entrepreneurship studies on top priority list in the fiscal budget in order to produce competent graduate entrepreneurs who can assume their effective role in the world of work to boost the nation’s drive for private sector driven economy and Edo State in particular.