Appraisal of Entrepreneurship Capacity Programs and Internationalization of Small and Medium Enterprises in Nigeria

The extent to which entrepreneurship capacity programs has assisted SMEs on internationalization has been a subject of controversy in recent time. Also the encouragement of entrepreneurial behavior has been adjudged to enhance the SME growth particularly given its contribution to economic prosperity in economies. The population of the study consisted of randomly selected employees of 20 internationalizing SMEs in Ikeja, Lagos industrial Centre. A total 200 employees were sampled through the instrument of a structured questionnaire. The statistical tools used included cross tabulations, Mean, Multiple Regression and Correlation analysis through the SPSS computer packages. The results showed that entrepreneurship training (ET), has significant relationship on the employment creation of SMEs to internationalize (at P =0.00). It was also found out that information provision (IP) has significant relationship with SMEs’ survival rate to internationalize (at P=0.018). The study discovered that most SMEs owners and employees possess minimal education on entrepreneurship to internationalize to tap opportunities in foreign markets as the capacity development programs are usually expensive due to the fact that these initiatives are driven by private and profit driven consulting organizations. Hence, the study recommends that entrepreneurship support agencies affiliates to federal, state, industrial and international organizations need to team up in strengthening the human capacity of SMEs in 21st century by implementing training programs that would reposition Nigerian SMEs for Internationalization. &nbsp