Entrepreneurship in Dilemma - Dissertation Example

However, not all countries are willing to adopt the principles of freedom, trade, and business development. Nigeria does not have a rich history of business development and entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the Nigerian President sets a challenging task to make Nigeria one of the world’s leading economies by 2020. Needless to say, entrepreneurship will play one of the key roles in the economic and social development in the country. This is one of the reasons why the factors of accountability and governance in the small business sector in Nigeria require detailed analysis.

Aims and objectives The key question for the proposed study is What Implications Do Accountability and Governance Have for the Future Nationwide Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria? The key research objectives include: To define and explore the concepts of accountability and governance; To understand and explain the implications of governance and accountability for entrepreneurship; To discuss and evaluate the current state of entrepreneurship in Nigeria; To find out and estimate the prospects of entrepreneurship development in Nigeria until 2020; To explain how accountability and governance can serve the needs of the future entrepreneurship development in Nigeria; To provide recommendations for the future research.

Literature Review The current state of literature provides abundant information about accountability and governance in entrepreneurship but leaves little room to the discussion of entrepreneurship in Nigeria (Switzer, LN & Tang, M 2009). Globalization and the following integration of national markets generate great chances for the fast development of business and entrepreneurship in all parts of the world. Nevertheless, not all states are ready to change their principles of freedom, trade, and business development (Switzer, LN & Tang, M 2009).

Many of them, especially developing countries meet a lot of difficulties on this way. However, it is possible to create a general picture of entrepreneurship in the African continent and estimate its prospects for the future. It should be noted, that governance and accountability are among the most popular, essential and widely discussed topics of scholarly analysis. The reasons for this are numerous and varied. First and foremost, governance provides a multitude of effects on strategic decisions in entrepreneurship (LeBreton-Miller & Miller 2008).

According to LeBreton-Miller and Miller (2008), small and medium enterprises that operate in the context of personal ownership are entirely distinct from those that are owned by diffuse stakeholders. Governance also affects manager-owner agency costs and bears heavy consequences on the quality of strategic outcomes (LeBreton-Miller & Miller 2008). Second, governance is essentially about power, and when globalization adds pressures on entrepreneurs, governance becomes an object of business and professional scrutiny (Verhezen & Morse 2009).

As of today, governance often serves the source of competitive advantage for firms, and pressures for improved governance challenge the established status quo in entrepreneurship (Verhezen & Morse 2009). Ultimately, governance has much to do with the value of firms: Switzer and Tang (2009) suggest that endogenous governance mechanisms constantly interact. Eventually, governance and accountability have far-reaching implications for policymaking in business and entrepreneurship (Bhasin 2010). Much has been written and said about