Successful IT Entrepreneurship in Nigeria: The Contingent Role of Mentorship

This paper principally explores the determinants of successful information technology entrepreneurship in Nigeria’s IT sector. It further examines the moderating effect of mentorship (either by an IT practitioner or a non-IT practitioner) in the correlation between the independent variables of interest and dependent variable. Literature from the developed markets underscores a positive relationship between training and successful entrepreneurship. However, such relationship is seldom explored within the context of developing markets such as Nigeria. Thus, this paper explores the impact of specific factors such as IT-focused entrepreneurial training, being born by entrepreneur parents, business school training, faith in a supernatural and mentorship on IT entrepreneurial success A quantitative research design involving a web-based survey was used to collect data among 297 participants. All collected data were screened and analyzed using binary logistic regression and Exploratory Factor Analysis. The results showed that IT entrepreneurs who are born by entrepreneur parents are more likely to succeed than those without such family backgrounds. Also, the attendance of a business school is a significant predictive factor for IT entrepreneurial success in Nigeria. Surprisingly, no significant correlation exists between formal education in the IT field and IT entrepreneurial success. Further, no significant moderating effect of mentorship was present. This implies that IT entrepreneurs in Nigeria need to harness the benefits of entrepreneurial family background and business school education to sustainably grow their businesses and become successful. Also, committed federal government backing is needed to introduce innovative entrepreneurial initiatives to improve competence among IT entrepreneurs in Nigeria. General business/management training is needed besides conventional IT training as the former is a better predictor of success among IT entrepreneurs. Finally, trainings need to focus on building competencies for relationship management to aid access to resources for innovation and growth. Future studies should consider a qualitative approach to investigating the mediating impact of mentorship on IT entrepreneurship success in Nigeria.