Impact of Social-Media on Entrepreneurial Intention Among Nigerian Youths

Introduction
In recent times, there has been a global surge in the use of social media, this is mostly among
youths (ages: 15-24 years old). Social media is defined as a set of internet-based applications
built for the creation of content, communication of information, and connecting people, based on
the technologies and ideology of web 2.0 [ CITATION Kap10 \l 1033 ]. Social media has been widely
accepted as a tool to bridge gaps in communication by increasing interaction across multiple
platforms it also improves socialization [ CITATION Ala18 \l 1033 ]. The youth demographic has
increasingly delved into entrepreneurial activities, and some have started to nurture
entrepreneurial intentions; one question to ponder upon is just how social media has ignited this
intent. The effective use of social networking sites ensures an improved customer and business
process and guarantees competitive gains (AlSharji, Ahmad, & Abu Bakar, 2018; Talebi et al.,
2012). Social media has a variety of potential uses for entrepreneurial purposes ranging from
using real-time feedback, advertising, creating consumer community for business advancement,
and so much more [CITATION Con08 \l 1033 ].

Social media has been a driving force in different business departments, but it has not stood
without its shortcomings. Amongst the youths, social media has served as an influence to delve
into businesses and innovative causes but has also served as a marring factor for entrepreneurial
involvement. Social media usage has continued to grow dramatically across the globe, as of 2021
3.78 billion of the world’s population are users and it is projected to grow by 22.5% in 2025 to
4.41 billion [ CITATION Sta212 \l 1033 ] . Social media's total usage rate as of January 2020 stood at
49% signifying overwhelming usage of these technology-based platforms with about 144 minutes
spent each day on them on average [ CITATION Sta212 \l 1033 ]. The statistics further confirm the
increasing usage of social network applications, and this is most popular among youths. Young
people need to leverage the benefits of social media rather than be exposed to the negative and
excessive use of the platforms. Social media can be maximized to start businesses, generate
profits, and be of great help in establishing a positive online presence.
Relevance of the research
Social media has grown to be a crucial part of the youth’s life [ CITATION Kap10 \l 1033 ] and this
has extended to businesses and practices across the world. Information now spreads faster with
fewer frictions through the internet and communication has continued to be smoothened with
various developments of social media applications. These platforms have given multiple choices
to users to create content, share information, and better communicate while incorporating features
that support business communication and progression. Past findings have established that small
and medium scale businesses need to incorporate the use of social media and innovative
technologies to guarantee profits and increased patronage (Dahnil et al., 2014; Jagongo &
Kinyua, 2013; McCann & & Barlow, 2015). Youngsters have been found at the core of social
media usage and the degree of social media usage has continued to be examined if it increases the
intention of youngsters in venturing into entrepreneurship.
Across the globe, social media has been identified to drive small and medium scale businesses
considering the tremendous increase in its usage. This cannot be said about Nigeria as there are
no comprehensive and rooted research on the extent to which the increasing use of social media
among youth influences their entrepreneurial intentions and their businesses. Although social
media has come to stay with youths, there is a need to examine how social media determines the
intents of youngsters in venturing into businesses.
Research objectives
The study is set to follow the guides of the following objectives:
i. To assess the relationship between social media and the entrepreneurial intentions of
youngsters.
ii. To examine social media impact on the intentions of young people to do business.
iii. To determine the extent to which social media impact decisions of youngsters in doing
business
Research Questions
This research aims to find theoretically based answers to the following research questions:
i. What relationship exists between social media and entrepreneurship?
ii. How does social media influence the intentions of young people to do business?
iii. How large does social media influence the decisions of young people to venture into
business?
Literature Review
Entrepreneurial intention is a necessary field for exploration for understanding the primal stage of
entrepreneurship process. Myriad of literature on entrepreneurial intention has established the
concept to be the starting point for entrepreneurial activities and reflected on how individuals,
especially youth, mostly in the academic environment, develops entrepreneurial intentions to
initiating and maintaining a start-up (Terán-Pérez et al., 2021). Many researchers have also
maintained that entrepreneurial behavior is best determined by entrepreneurial intention
[CITATION Ajz91 \t \l 1033 \m Kru00] . Consequently, the entrepreneurial development process of a
young adult inclusive of his entrepreneurial exposures and experience will shape his
entrepreneurial ability [ CITATION Nor19 \l 1033 ].
Swarupa & Goyal [CITATION Swa20 \n \t \l 1033 ] in their review paper gathered about 100
research papers describing entrepreneurial intention published between 2014 and 2019 and
studied them carefully. They recognize two main parts of their paper to be: entrepreneurship
education and entrepreneurship intention. In a survey carried out by Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor [CITATION Glo16 \n \t \l 1033 ] in 60 different countries established that about 60% and
50% respectively believed that entrepreneurship is a good career path and they can take up
entrepreneurial activities. With the positive consequences of entrepreneurship in the pst decades,
many countries have considered the adoption of entrepreneurship as a prospective solution to the
series of social menace such as the inability of the public and private sectors to economically
improve their position to provide jobs for youth, the flying rate of unemployment, excessive
number of graduates, and crime rate among youths. Entrepreneurial intention has come to play an
important role as a research field as it contributes to the growing body of knowledge that proffer
solutions to fast-paced entrepreneurship development in many nations.
Social media allows users to initiate conversations and connections from different far ends with
one another by sharing information, uploading pictures, video and audio files, documents, and
profiles. There are multiple social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp,
Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. that are used mainly by youths and businesses to invite
acquaintances, exchange electronic messages, promote products, and more [ CITATION Ala18 \l
1033 ]. Social media facilitates social connections, group interactions and collaboration, and the
exchange of information [ CITATION Usl09 \l 1033 ].
Hanna et al [CITATION Han11 \n \t \l 1033 ] argued that with its rapid popularity growth, social
media has become a transformative agent in business activities such as brand creation,
advertising, marketing, brand promotion, customer relations, and product development.
Businesses have also adopted social media as a channel of product distribution. Kirakosyan
[CITATION Kir14 \n \t \l 1033 ] also argued that many businesses have appropriate the use of social
media as an important means to gather needed information on product sales, customers' feedback,
etc. Also, Nasir et al [CITATION Nas17 \n \t \l 1033 ] agreed and further argued along Kirakosyan
[CITATION Kir14 \n \t \l 1033 ] that due to the power recognized in the use of social media
platforms, maturing and young entrepreneurs and also students have taken the opportunity
offered by social media platforms to operate their businesses, test their new products, and spread
their crafts.
Companies adopt many social media technologies in several ways to improve their businesses,
they also utilize these platforms for online presence recognition, receiving feedback on products,
building consumers communities, etc. Moreover, companies use social media tools like LinkedIn,
to recruit and expand their social capital. Liu & Ying [CITATION Liu10 \n \t \l 1033 ] also argued
that social media tools have been useful in opening businesses to new technologies in their
various fields and help businesses learn about their competitors, exploit new markets, and
discover new opportunities.
In Nigeria, researchers have made series of effort to investigate entrepreneurial orientation,
intention, and exposure among youths and undergraduate students and the factors influencing
these phenomena. Ekpe & Mat (2012), in their paper, explored the effect of entrepreneurial
orientation on entrepreneurial intention among female students and discovered that there exists a
positive relationship. That is, through self-efficacy and entrepreneurial education, female students
in Nigeria have an increasing intention to venture into businesses and innovative start-ups. In an
investigation carried out by Agbim & Gbarin (2021) in ten public universities in Nigeria,
discovered that the challenges of Covid-19 and its harsh restrictions did not hamper the
entrepreneurial intentions among undergraduates. Undergraduate students during this period were
increasingly involved in pre-start-ups and start-up business activities and this is due to the
increased time spent on and use of social media. However, Adebayo [CITATION Ade15 \n \t \l
1033 ] argued that despite the huge prospects of the use of social media for exploiting
entrepreneurial opportunities, predispositions of students and young adults to identify
opportunities and start businesses have been low. This, he related to factors such as lack of
business startup innovation, dampened entrepreneurial intention among students and youths in
Nigeria.
The gap in the Literature
The literature reviewed on entrepreneurship did not strike a well-comprehensive relationship
between social media and the intent of young people to venture into business. Many of the
reviewed literature laid emphasis on the usage of social media by businesses and how influential
social media has been in improving business activities and generating profits. And in Nigeria,
many of the researchers have not adequately established the influence of social media usage on
the intentions of youth venturing into businesses.
Nonetheless, this papers goal is to shed a theoretically understanding on the influence of social
media and the entrepreneurial intention of young adults in Nigeria. It is believed that social media
has become a core part of socialization and that it influences the decision, perception, and
intention of its users which young adults identify as a significant part of.
Theoretical Framework
A structural model will be used to assess the impact of social media on the entrepreneurial
intentions of youngsters, based on prior studies and research. Shapero & Sokol's (1982)
Entrepreneurial Event Model and Ajzen's (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior will be the
foundations of this study's model. In terms of perceived feasibility (PF) and perceived desirability
(PD) which both models agree upon. The key dependent variable in this paper's model is the
entrepreneurial intention, which is influenced by two main precursors: perceived desirability and
perceived feasibility. The independent variable in this study is social media, which is broken
down into sub-variables including privacy risk (RoP), competitive usefulness (CU), ease of use
(EoU), competitive pressure (CP), and social media trust (TSM) (Davis, 1989; Premkumar &
Roberts, 1999; Featherman & Pavlou, 2003; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003; Chai,
Das, & Rao, 2011; Hughes, 2016)
This can be mathematically represented as:
Entrepreneurial Intention( PF , PD )=f (Social Media( RoP ,CU , EoU ,CP ,TSM ))

Entrepreneurial intention-based questions will be used to build the questionnaire instrument,

which has been tried and confirmed in earlier studies. The questionnaires will be administered to
youths in Nigeria, particularly undergraduates and graduates of Nigerian universities. The
instruments and scales will be tested using validation procedures. Cronbach's alpha will be
calculated, as well as exploratory factor analysis, to make sure the requests are internally
consistent. In accordance to TCPS, the researcher will ensure that respondents have all the
information needed regarding the study, the survey, and its goals and participation in the research
is entirely voluntary, and that their responses will remain anonymous to protect their privacy.
SPSS will be used to analyze the data obtained from the survey. For a better understanding, the
respondents' descriptive analysis and other information will be supplied.

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