Authors : Udeh Ifeoma Ifeyinwa; Okeke Chinenye Patience

Volume/Issue : Volume 10 - 2025, Issue 7 - July

Google Scholar : https://tinyurl.com/z2wcdxka

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/25jul917

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Abstract : The huge need for the study of entrepreneurship research in sub-Saharan Africa both out of necessity and the opportunity it offers to create small and medium scale enterprises ( SMEs) is not debatable. The widespread poverty and unemployment in the region among youths particularly women is a social concern. Poverty reduction through entrepreneurship has become a sure and efficient path to thread especially in Nigeria. Engagement in Innovation/digital entrepreneurship is essentially relevant element for economic growth, development and poverty reduction in Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions and descriptive design, mean and standard deviation were used. The instrument was a structured questionnaire on 4-point scale of SA, A, D and SD and also VHE,HE,LE and VLE. The validity of the instrument was done by three experts from marketing and Business School. Reliability of the instrument yielded 0.84 Cronbach alpha. The sample size of 120 were selected through purposive random sampling. The findings of this paper revealed that necessity entrepreneurs are more rampant due to digital skill shortfalls. From the findings innovative entrepreneurship is key for job creation and reduction of poverty in Nigeria. The study recommends that a system be designed to build capacity of necessity entrepreneurs to become innovative generating new products and services to take advantage of market opportunities in today’s digital age.

Keywords : Entrepreneurship, Necessity Entrepreneur, Opportunity Entrepreneur, Poverty Reduction and Digital Age.

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