IIARD International Institute of Academic Research and Development

Journal of Business and African Economy (JBAE )

E-ISSN 2545-5281
P-ISSN 2695-2238
VOL. 11 NO. 2 2025
DOI: 10.56201/jbae.v11.no2.2025.pg186.198

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Characteristics of Knowledge Economy and Business Education Graduate Students’ Labour Market Prospects in South-South, Nigeria

IKPESU Oghenerukevwe Christian, FIRIMA Sunday

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Abstract

Investigating the relationship characteristics of the knowledge economy and their implications for the labour market prospects of business education graduate students in South-South Nigeria is the central focus of this correlation study. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population of this study consisted of 206 postgraduate students (comprises of 125 Masters and 81 PhD students) in the department of Business Education, in six state owned universities in South-South, Nigeria. Due to the small nature of the population, the researchers decided to use the entire population of Two Hundred and Six (206) post graduates students in the Business Education Department. The instruments for data collection is a two set of self-structured questionnaire titled, characteristics of knowledge economy questionnaire (CKEQ) for the first instrument and labour market prospects questionnaire (LMPQ) for the second instrument. The instruments were validated by expert in the faculty of Education and reliability indices of 0.71 and 0.83 were established using the Cronbach Alpha statistical index. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistic was used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 25). The findings revealed that there are indeed significant relationships between open innovation and education and training as characteristics of knowledge economy and Business Education graduate students’ labour market prospects in South-South, Nigeria. Based on the results, recommendations were made as follows that the ministry of Education should introduce knowledge economy that will incorporate leadership- focused training in educational programmes, providing mentorship opportunities, and fostering a culture that values forward-thinking, preparing business education graduates to become the visionary leaders needed for sustainable e

keywords:

knowledge Economy, Open Innovation, Education and Training, Business, Education, Labour Market

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