235 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Vol 14, No 4, 2013, pp 235–254 doi: 10.5367/ijei.2013.0130 The venturesome poor and entrepreneurial activity in Nigeria The role of consumption, technology and human capital Yazid A. Abubakar and Jay Mitra Abstract: Based on a cross-sectional study using a data set of 77,400 households in 37 regions of Nigeria, the authors examine how the ability of the poor to use information and communication technology-based products (their ‘venturesomeness’) influences the location of entrepre- neurial firms in urban and rural regions. They investigate in particular the role of human capital in mediating the relationship between such venture- some consumption and the location of entrepreneurial firms. They test three sets of hypotheses to examine this relationship using multiple regres- sion analyses, bivariate correlations and t-tests. The authors find that the use of information and communication technology by both the urban and rural poor is significantly linked to the location of entrepreneurial firms. While human capital mediates this relationship with regard to the poor in urban areas, the same is not the case for the rural poor. Implications are drawn for theory, practice and policy. Keywords: venturesome; the poor; human capital; information and communication technologies; regional development; Nigeria Yazid A. Abubakar is Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development and Jay Mitra (corresponding author) is Professor of Business Enterprise and Innovation and Director of the International Centre for Entrepreneurship Research (ICER), Essex Business School, University of Essex, Southend Campus, Elmer Approach, Southend-on-Sea SS1 1LW, UK. E-mail: yaabub@essex.ac.uk; jmitra@essex.ac.uk. The poor are not always part of the agenda of entrepre- neurship. Since entrepreneurship is viewed today as a key driver of economic growth (Romer, 1992; Wennekers and Thurik, 1999; Acs, 2002; Carree and and Thurik, 2006), the exclusion of the poor from the entrepreneurship agenda could account for a deficit in the discussions on inclusive growth, especially in developing economies (Gris and Naude, 2008). One line of thinking about developing economies and the poor has grown around the idea of entrepreneurial activities in the form of new venture formation, innova- tion and high-growth firms (World Economic Forum, 2009; Acs and Szerb, 2007). The relatively impressive progress made by countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Lao PDR, the Maldives, Swaziland and Yemen are good examples of success in developing economies, stemming mostly from the creation of new ventures (Beaugrand, 2004; IMF, 2011). Critical work by Ray (2010), Rodrick (2010), Banerjee and Duflo (2011) and Krishna (2011) has, however, identified the limitations to entrepreneurial activity by the poor, the discriminating effects of uneven