Investigating Entrepreneurial Skills as a Mediator between Advisory Intervention Services of Microfinance Bank and Performance of Women-Owned Enterprises in North Eastern Nigeria

This paper evaluates entrepreneurial skills as a mediating variable in the relationship between advisory intervention services of microfinance banks and performance of women-owned enterprises in North Eastern Nigeria. The paper adopted descriptive research design which allowed the representative population of 1,262 women entrepreneurs across six states: Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Gombe, Adamawa, and Bauchi, all of whom were beneficiaries of microfinance bank support. Using Taro Yamane’s formula, a sample size of 304 was determined and increased to 395 to accommodate a 30% attrition rate. The respondents were selected using stratified random sampling technique to ensure proportional representation across states and institutions. The questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods, including means, standard deviation, regression analysis, and mediation analysis, all conducted using SPSS. Evidence from the analysis result shows a high level of agreement among respondents regarding the impact of advisory services, with a composite mean of 4.09 and a standard deviation of 0.72. The regression analysis revealed a significant positive direct effect of advisory services on performance (B = 0.25, β = 0.22, t = 3.92, p < 0.001), with the model accounting for 36.5% of the variance (R² = 0.365). However, mediation analysis using the PROCESS macro showed that entrepreneurial skills fully mediated this relationship. The total effect was statistically significant (0.3839, p < 0.001), while the direct effect was not (0.1021, p = 0.0940). The indirect effect through entrepreneurial skills was strong and significant (0.2794), supported by a high t-statistic (13.3235) and a confidence interval excluding zero. The study concludes that entrepreneurial skills are essential in transforming advisory services into measurable business performance improvements.