The development of youth entrepreneurship has been forwarded as a very attractive alternative both to help the growing number of unemployed youth and to harness the potentials of the youth in an effort to bolster the economy of a country. This study has attempted to explore the level of importance of various factors for youth entrepreneurship development in enterprises in the context of Eritrea by seeking the opinions of private and public manufacturing enterprise managers and senior students in a business college. A total number of 150 managers and students were asked to rate 56 factors that are expected to influence or affect youth entrepreneurship development in enterprises. Respondents were asked to rate each factor, presented in the form of 5-points likert-scale. The ratings of the factors of importance for youth entrepreneurship development in enterprises by the three groups of respondents have a moderate degree of correspondence (as measured by the Spearman’s rho). Among the factors considered for youth entrepreneurship development in enterprises, prioritized factors by private enterprise managers are related with provision of more supportive environment for youth. Public enterprise managers have prioritized factors that target for the development of enterprise such as technology transfer and education while students have prioritized factors related with ambition, individual initiative and hard work In general, private enterprise managers were found to rate the factors higher compared to either public enterprise managers or the student group. The study has shown that the three groups of respondents have somewhat different opinions on how youth entrepreneurship in enterprises can be developed. This suggests the need to take into account the viewpoints of various relevant stakeholders when such programs of youth entrepreneurship development are envisioned.
Keywords: Business Students, Entrepreneurship, Eritrea, Managers, Youth
