Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MS
College
Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design
Department
Fashion, Dress and Merchandising
Committee Chair
Katie Jones
Committee Co-Chair
Colleen Moretz
Committee Member
Angela Uriyo
Committee Member
Jessica Blythe
Abstract
A critical part of being an entrepreneur is the ability to work with others. Researchers who explore entrepreneurship acknowledge collaboration and information sharing as key as more obvious skills such as opportunity recognition and determination. Collaboration allows a firm to be entrepreneurial and constantly innovative by exploring new markets. Continuous innovation and market exploration are the foundation of collaboration. Entrepreneurship is a critical factor in the growth of developing countries, as it enables a country to grow economically and encourages sustainable business activity. Therefore, this study explores the collaborative entrepreneurship of communities of some small businesses in Nigeria for their competitive advantage. The objective of the study is to identify the challenges and opportunities of Nigerian fashion entrepreneurs, explore perceptions of collaborative relationships, and to examine best practices for building a collaborative community of design professionals. An inductive qualitative research approach was used to explore the challenges, opportunities, and best practices used in this community. To better understand these entrepreneurs lived experiences, a semi-structured phone interview was used to gather information. Participants’ recruiting occurred through purposive sampling from the Fashionpreneur group and non-fashionpreneur group members. The Fashionpreneur group is a community of Nigerian fashion designers created for the purpose of resource sharing for their business growth. The results of this research recommend best practices in creating a successful collaborative relationship for the designer’s competitive advantage. The result is presented to the admins of the Fashionpreneur group and inform future research and intervention.
Recommended Citation
Fasinu, Damilola T., "Collaborative Entrepreneurship and Building Small Business Communities in The Nigerian Fashion Design Industry" (2020). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 7541.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/7541