Effect of crowd-funding on entrepreneurial intentions among academic staff of Nigerian universities

To develop greater interest in enterprise start-up, efficient corporate management among adults and effective enterprise finance strategy among policy-makers,this study was conducted to examine the level of awareness of crowd-funding model and its effect on entrepreneurial intentions among Nigerian university lecturers. With a survey, data were collected from 217 lecturers at three universities in north, east and west regions of Nigeria. Employing descriptive statistics and partial least square (Smart PLS-SEM) methods, data were analysed. Among others, we found that most of the lecturers were not aware of crowd-funding as a novel model for enterprise financing. We also discovered that crowd-funding has a significant positive relationship with entrepreneurial intentions. Therefore, it was recommended that the government and university management should draft appropriate strategies (e.g. inclusion in syllabus) that will engender greater awareness and adoption of crowd-funding, especially among entrepreneurial educators and students, for enterprise creation and development in the country.