Purpose Drawing on the human capital theory and the dual model of passion, this study aims to explore the mediating role of passion on the relationship between entrepreneurship education programme and students’ attitude towards self-employment (SE). Design/methodology/approach The proposed research framework was tested on a sample of 445 higher education students in four universities in North-Central Nigeria. Findings The results indicated that learning and inspiration account for the variation in students’ attitude towards SE. Furthermore, the study revealed that harmonious and obsessive passion largely mediate the relationship between entrepreneurship education programme and attitude towards SE. Practical implications The policy implication is the scaling of policies targeted at encouraging the development of passion given its significant role in the entrepreneurship education programme and attitude towards SE link. Originality/value The study has established the importance of human capital theory in explaining the attitude towards SE phenomenon using a multi-theoretical approach and has advanced the theoretical field of affect and its relevance in the field of entrepreneurship.

The service sector of the economy has become a major role in the economies of most nations of the world and citizens living in such economies are living in increasingly service based economies. This is because the service sector plays a dominant role in creating value in such economies and by extension, the purchasing patterns of consumers and managerial decisions of the providers of these services to a large extent are influenced by activities of players in the sector. For the service sector to maintain dominance in the economic sector, the quality of services being provided should meet or exceed customers' expectations. This research work seeks to assess the impact of the quality of banking services on the profitability of banks. To study this, we postulated three research hypotheses, relied on secondary data using the SPSS package, analysed data through the regression analysis and found out that there is no significant relationship between volume of Deposit and investment in service quality by banks in Nigeria, there is no significant relationship between investments in service quality and volume of turnover by banks and that there is no significant relationship between investments in banks' service quality and the profitability of banks in Nigeria. The absence of a clear strong relationship between service quality improvements and profitability in the Nigerian banking sector is an indication that banks are not really showing improvements in the provision of banking services that would draw the attention of customers.Based on the findings, we conclude that to be able to achieve repeat purchase by customers in the increasing competitive banking business, banks should organize their operations according to the needs expressed (or in several cases even not expressed) by their customers.

The study evaluated the Implementation of Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Curriculum in Federal Universities in North Central Geo-Political Zone, Nigeria. The study was aimed at finding out the level of the implementation of the GST entrepreneurship education in federal universities in Nigeria and how it has equipped the undergraduate students with the necessary entrepreneurship skills that would enable them to practice after graduation. Four research questions and two hypotheses were raised for the study. A cross-sectional survey research design was used for the study. The population of the study constituted of seven federal universities in the study area 14 directors, 49 GST lecturers and 25,087 final year (400 levels) undergraduate students. The sample size of the study consisted of five federal universities, 10 Directors (including five GST Directors & five Entrepreneurship Directors), 29 GST lecturers and 1826 final year (400 levels) undergraduate students using multi-stage sampling technique. The instruments for data collection were structured Undergraduate General Studies Entrepreneurship Curriculum Implementation Questionnaires (UGSECIQ) which were subdivided into three sections for: directors, lecturers and students. Content validity was established on the questionnaire by three experts, each from Curriculum Studies, Business Management and Measurement and Evaluation from the University of Jos. A reliability coefficient of 0.890, 0.901 and 0.957 for the directors, lecturers and students' responses respectively were obtained through Cronbach

Small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are known for creating jobs and boosting the economic development of both developed and emerging countries, they are essential to national development, innovation and social inclusion. Therefore, there is an increasing need to address the poor performance of SMEs in Nigeria due to the high rate of failures and their inability to compete favorably with large firms, and the adoption of entrepreneurial marketing practices provides a win-win situation for the enterprise and its stakeholders. The need to investigate how entrepreneurial marketing strategies would improve organization competitiveness in the SME sub-sector is therefore necessary. In order to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial marketing strategies (change driving, bootstrapping, and calculated risk) and competitive advantage in Nigeria's SMEs, this study employed a quantitative approach, owners and managers of SMEs in Plateau State, North Central Nigeria, received questionnaires. 286 owners and managers in all took part in the study. With the aid of SPSS Version 26, multiple regression analysis was used to examine the acquired data. Based on the analysis, the study found that risk taking had a weak link with competitive advantage, change driving and bootstrapping had a strong relationship.

This study explored the consequences of entrepreneurial marketing by creating empirical evidence grounded in dynamic capability view and image theory. The study proposed a direct and indirect relationship between entrepreneurial marketing and competitive advantage, recognizing corporate creativity as the boundary condition on the entrepreneurial marketing-competitive advantage link suggesting a moderated entrepreneurial marketing model. The study explained the theoretical and practical contribution of the study in our understanding of entrepreneurial marketing practices and the role of corporate reputation. Corporate creativity was also discussed especially from the perspective of entrepreneurial firms.