THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON ENTREPRENEURIAL PARTICIPATION AMONG STUDENTS

Is religion a driver of entrepreneurship? This is the motivation of embarking on this research, to examine whether there is any influence between religion and entrepreneurship participation. With the high number of entrepreneurial activities currently in Nigeria, the main question is, does religion has any impact on such activities? The theory which underpin the study is Max Weber’s protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism theory. The study adopted a survey method, using one hundred and fifty (150) questionnaire which were administered to Post Graduate students of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria from the Department of Business Administration, from which one hundred and eighteen (118) were duly filled and returned. The study employed the use of multiple regression using STATA software. The findings of the study revealed a positive relationship between IR and EP, however there was no influence between IR and EP because the P value is higher than 10%, but the results also shows that there is strong influence of extrinsic religion on entrepreneurial participation. Thus, the study recommended that religious leaders should be involved in training youths or entrepreneurs and in their sermons they should be centered on educating the populace on the importance of entrepreneurship in order to enable the country prosper.