UNDERSTANDING SELF-EMPLOYMENT: EVIDENCE FROM ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS, MOTIVATION, AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE

This article provides a review of literature on entrepreneurial skills acquisition, self-employment and mediating variables in the relationship. Salient among these variables are social influence and self-motivation. The study utilized qualitative research design. In so doing, over fifty relevant literatures on the subject were espoused in order of relevance to the study. After examining several articles in the literature, we were left in a paradox. Entrepreneurial skills acquisition was found to influence self-employment in most of the articles reviewed, but in limited cases, some studies found that entrepreneurial skills acquisition does not guarantee self-employment. Several social and psychological factors were proffered as mediators in the relationship between entrepreneurial skills acquisition and self-employment. The study thus recommends entrepreneurial skills training mix that incorporates relevant environmental variables that inhibits skills acquisition from resulting to self-employment.