Entrepreneurial Training and Business Sustainability of Beneficiaries of FIIRO Technologies

Entrepreneurs play significant roles in the growth and development of world economies, particularly since the 19th century. They spur industry transformations, create entirely new markets, advance wealth generation, create social change and help in community development. All these aims to give better life and end poverty in all its forms and everywhere. Entrepreneurship training is a structured program that aims to equip participants with the necessary skillset and mindset for identifying and launching new business ventures. The objective of this study is to investigate entrepreneurial training as a determinant of business sustainability in Nigeria. For this purpose, 100 beneficiaries of FIIRO technologies are selected for this study bearing the following criteria in mind: must have been trained at FIIRO between 2002 and 2020; must have established an enterprise based on technology(ies) acquired at FIIRO; must have been in business for at least two years with a product in the market and must have made the list of 100 FIIRO Successful entrepreneurs. The study adopts cross sectional research design approach and purposive and convenience sampling techniques. The instrument for primary data collection is 6-point Likert Scale questionnaire. The questionnaires are self administered to the trainees. Financial measures namely profitability, sales growth and number of employees are used to measure business sustainability while entrepreneurial training factors are measured by training content, training budget, trainer's competency, entry behaviour of trainees and trainee's exit behaviour. The data collected are analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) to examine the possible effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. The findings reveal that entrepreneurial training factors have significant and positive effect on business sustainability (r = 0.522, R = 0.581, R2 = 0.340 p