Entrepreneurship literacy among youth SMMEs in Ethekwini Municipality

Abstract

The research articulated in this paper was the reflection of the continued systemic challenges impeding Youth SMME’s in accessing entrepreneurial literacy, knowledge and competencies propelling their entities to sustained profit-maximisation. While the Department of Small Business Development is tasked with facilitating the general SMME development, it is felt little progress has been observed in the support of Youth SMME’s in the participation of the economic mainstream. It is the firm belief of the authors that knowledgeable Youth SMME’s equipped with the appropriate competencies, expertise and skills could irrefutably sustain their entity’s operations and positively contribute to economic growth in the country. With the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the SMME’s operate in theKnowledge-Based Economy, which is the key driver of innovation, productivity and sustainability. The significance of entrepreneurialism knowledge amongst youth entities could make a profound contribution to the absorption of skills and the associated competitive growth of their entities. While entrepreneurial literacy incentives amongst the policy makers continue to lack result-driven institutional mechanism, youth entities, on the other hand, are required to hit the proverbial entrepreneurial ground running. The research instrument utilised in this paper has been designed to identify the variables that could be associated with the identification of the inhibiting factors for the Youth SMME’s to access real-time knowledge in order for them to be armed with current knowledge within the context of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, augment reality and mobile commerce era.

Keywords: Youth SMME’s, entrepreneurship literacy, programs and policies, Department of Small Business Development, knowledge sharing platforms