EMPOWERING ENTREPRENEURS’ DESIRE FOR INDEPENDENCE AND INNOVATION PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN NIGERIA

 

A. Adesanya¹, C. Love-Moses², R. Worlu³, O. Salau⁴

¹Covenant university (Nigeria), sanyaadewale200@gmail.com,

²Covenant university (Nigeria), chinonye.moses@covenantuniversity.edu.ng,

³Covenant university (Nigeria), rowland.worlu@covenantuniversity.edu.ng,

 ⁴Covenant university (Nigeria), odunayo.salau@covenantuniversity.edu.ng

 

Abstract

The desire for independence has become one of the main traits and drivers for becoming an entrepreneur. With changing global markets, technology breakthroughs and with lower market entry barriers, there has been an increase in the number of entrepreneurs across various sectors, including the agricultural sector, over the past couple of years. Agricultural sector in Nigeria used to be one of the pillars of the country’s economy, but over the last few decades, the different ways, policies and programmes put in place to promote investment and diversification in the agricultural sector have not been able to yield good or desired results. The huge potential of investment and export diversification in order to get the Nigeria agricultural sector to add to the economy as it does in the before (1960s) have remain locked and untapped, because of a number of constraints/factors that must be addressed.. To achieve this, there is need to understand how entrepreneurs create the desire for independence over the changing contexts of life. Hence, this study examined the influence of entrepreneurs’ desire for independence on innovation performance of the agricultural sector. Specifically, McClelland needs theory was applied to the study with logical linkage of the variables. The study adopted cross-sectional approach and descriptive research designs to establish trends and draw inferences. The target population comprised members of all farmers association of Nigeria (AFAN). Only 211 members of the association were purposively selected for this study. The use of structured questionnaire was adopted and copies were administered during the association’s meetings. The validity of the instrument was established using the social sciences citation index (ssci) questionnaire tests that have demonstrated higher reliability and data collected were analysed using measurement and structural equation modelling (SEM) to establish fitness and strength of relationship at 5% level of significance. The main tenet of the findings is that entrepreneurs’ desire for independence does significantly predict innovation performance at particular levels of analysis and in specific situations. The result obtained established that the sub-variables of the entrepreneurs’ desire for independence – ambition, goals, energy and persistence are significant predictors of innovation performance (r = .581, r2 = .338, p < .05) but differ between individuals. This implies that 33.8% of the change in the innovation performance was due to entrepreneurs’ desire for independence. The paper concludes that desire for independence plays an imperative role in improving organisation members' creativity, abilities, skills and knowledge. It was recommended that continuous empowerment of farmers’ ambition, goals, energy and persistence will help to facilitate and translate their knowledge and expertise into embodied products for sustainable innovation performance

Keywords: entrepreneurs, desire for independence, performance, innovation, agriculture