Abstract:

Over the years, studies have explored the expediency of entrepreneurship in addressing social problems relating to unemployment, poverty, economic stagnation and societal inability to attain national development in developed and developing societies. To this end, government of these nations seek to promote entrepreneurship as a means of economic revitalization and sustainability mostly in rural areas. However, the success of entrepreneurship in any country may depend on several factors that could be explained theoretically. In social and behvioural sciences, theories have been constantly employed to provide explanations to social life issues bothering mankind. This article intends to employ such theories to explain traditional business mentoring (nwa boy) which most entrepreneurs in South-East Nigeria seem to have engaged in establishing their businesses. These include: (i) Sociological Theory of Entrepreneurship; (ii) Anthropological Entrepreneurship Theory; (iii) Opportunity–Based Entrepreneurship Theory (iii) Resource-Based Entrepreneurship Theories; and (iv)The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition, among others. This article attempts a theoretical explanation of traditional business mentoring (nwa boy) in South-East Nigeria. Historical data will be used to examine these theories in connection with the traditional business mentoring (nwa boy) in order to enrich the body of knowledge on the social life reality of the contributions of traditional business mentoring to entrepreneurial development in Nigeria. The importance of this effort is hinged on the fact that none of these theories has hitherto been applied to the traditional business mentoring (nwa boy) in business and academic literature. The traditional business mentoring (nwa boy) as practice in Nigerian context, could be akin with several strategies (crowdfunding, bootstrapping, venture capital,  angel investing, virgin startup, invoice factoring, thiel fellowship etc.) usually employed in raising fund for entrepreneurial development in developed world. This study is of the view that if the traditional business mentoring (nwa boy) could be effectively engaged by the youth of other geo-political zones of Nigeria, the problem of unemployment, probably would have been reduced to the barest minimum.