Importance of Openness for Production and Innovation in Informal Sector Cluster: Lessons From Nigeria

1. Introduction

Nigeria’s adoption of science technology and innovation (STI) policy have brought enormous opportunities; growth and poverty reduction and increase in the number of technology-based firms among others. Furthermore, STI policy have opened the mind of “youngpreneurs” to the importance of science and technology to solving economic problem. “Youngpreneurs are conceptually defined as innovative business minded who sense business opportunities, acquired the needed technologies and timely meet customers’ needs for wealth making.” In addition to that, most of the emergent youngpreneurs’ technology-based firms were informally established and clustered because of the conglomeration opportunities amidst others such as cost sharing, warehouse sharing and knowledge sharing. While the rise of empirical study on Otigba cluster firms in Lagos Nigeria has been extensively analysed (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, 2006). However, our knowledge about the interaction role of openness, networking, partnership and innovation in this phenomenon remains limited. Hence, this contribution aims to contributing to that knowledge gap.

This study heading is as follows; related literature review, methodology, results, discussions, conclusions and implication of the study.