Effects of Cooperative Entrepreneurship on Socio-Economic Empowerment of Members in Three Selected States, Nigeria
[Thesis]
Adebayo, Sunday Joseph
Mustapha, Yusuf Ismaila
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
2019
198 p.
Ph.D.
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
2019
Cooperative entrepreneurship in Nigeria is bedeviled with various challenges ranging from ineptitude governance, poor membership cooperative information, lack lustre to economic participation and inadequate legislation, policies and guidelines were seen to hamper the effectiveness of cooperative entrepreneurship in Nigeria. The study was premised on two constructs of cooperative entrepreneurship and socio-economic empowerment, using the variables of cooperative governance, cooperative information, economic participation and legislation vis-à-vis, the poverty reduction, mutual support, concern for community and self-reliance. Four major objectives were examined ;determine the effect of cooperative governance on empowerment through poverty reduction among cooperative members; ;;examine the effect of cooperative information on empowerment through mutual support among cooperative members; ;;evaluate the extent of effect of cooperative economic participation on empowerment through welfare for community among cooperative members; and ;;assess the extent of the effect of cooperative legislation on empowerment through self-reliance among cooperative members. ; It adopted a mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative techniques in order to undertake in-depth analysis of the study. Data were obtained from primary sources. Out of 1096 copies of structured questionnaire administered on respondents, 828 copies of questionnaire were validly returned from the total population of 24,600 trustees of cooperative societies in the three selected states. The empirical analysis using quantitative method of inferential statistics shows that from the Standard Multiple Regression Analysis of four tested hypotheses, reflected that the cooperative empowerment variable of poverty reduction was explained by the constant variables to the tune of 27.8%, hence, cooperative entrepreneurship has the ability to determine empowerment through poverty reduction with coefficient of 1.211 signifying that there is no correlation in the model error term, thus rules out any spurious regression problems. In the same vein, cooperative information was observed to have influenced empowerment through mutual support to the tune of 36.3% and the estimated f-value 16.497 significance value of 0.000, thus, the Null Hypothesis is rejected and alternate hypothesis is upheld. From the tested hypothesis on cooperative economic participation on empowerment through welfare for community, there was positive relationship between cooperative economic participation and level of welfare for community at 40.3%. A significant effect between cooperation legislation and level of self-reliance exist to the extent that a unit increase in cooperative legislation will inadvertently affect self-reliance score in approximately at 46% variance and Durbin Watson coefficient of .761 respectively. The thematic analysis indicated that most of the respondents agreed that poverty reduction is achieved through financial protection among members, large scale production and resource sharing among members and on the other hand mutual support is achieved through economic gains, networking among members and existence of symbiotic relationship within various strata of societies. The analysis also confirmed that welfare of community occurred in societies' business operations, provision of infrastructure and social interaction among members. Empowerment through self-reliance is also based on futuristic plans, generation of internal fund at cheaper rate and ability to govern themselves. The study recommends that promoters and managers of cooperatives should give adequate governance a priority, paying more attention to members training, information and education, ensure symbiotic relationship among members provision of infrastructure and establishment of business outfit in addition to adequate planning ahead for future would aid members socio-economic empowerment.