Sustainable entrepreneurship among university students: Motivation, challenges, and opportunities

This study examined the factors that motivate student entrepreneurs in adopting sustainable entrepreneurial practices, ascertained the factors that pose a challenge to student entrepreneurs in adopting sustainable entrepreneurial practices, as well as examine the sustainable entrepreneurial opportunities available to student entrepreneurs. This study made use of the survey design. The population of this study is made up of all the students of the University of Benin, Edo State, and Western Delta University, Oghara, Delta State, Nigeria. A sample of 450 students was taken from the two universities. However, 398 copies of the questionnaire administered were found usable for data analyses. This study made use of descriptive statistics, explanatory factor analysis, t-test, and ANOVA in order to analyze the data that were obtained from the questionnaire with the aid of IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 22.0) software. The findings reveal that student entrepreneurs are primarily motivated to adopt sustainable practices by environmental safety concerns, self-fulfillment, recognition, psychological needs, and profit considerations. The results also indicate that student entrepreneurs are inclined to develop environmentally friendly products and processes that reduce waste, minimize pollution, and lower reliance on finite natural resources. The factor analysis confirmed that students’ motivations for adopting sustainable entrepreneurship are structured around environmental–intrinsic, social recognition, and economic dimensions, while perceived challenges are grouped into institutional and structural barriers to demonstrate a clear multidimensional pattern. While gender did not significantly influence these perceptions, faculty affiliation significantly shaped environmental and social motivation dimensions, suggesting that academic discipline plays a role in sustainability orientation. The study recommends that more awareness of sustainability, as low awareness results in the poor acceptance of sustainable products by members of society. Governments should be more involved in the training of entrepreneurs in adopting sustainable practices, especially students in tertiary institutions.