An Evaluation of the Mediating Effect of Entrepreneurial Skills on the Relationship between Training Intervention Programme of Microfinance Bank and Performance of Women-Owned Enterprises in North Eastern Nigeria

The paper examines the mediating effect of entrepreneurial skills in the association between training programmes of microfinance banks and the performance of women-owned businesses in North-Eastern Nigeria. It study adopted a descriptive survey design, which included 1,262 women entrepreneurs in Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Gombe, Adamawa, and Bauchi who had been subjected to microfinance interventions as the study population. The sample size of 395 respondents determined using Taro Yamane formula was selected using a stratified random sample to have a proportional representation of the six states. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire. The results from the analysis showed that there was a significant agreement on the effectiveness of the programme with a mean of 4.21 and a standard deviation of 0.68. The regression analysis showed that training programmes had a significant positive impact on business performance (B = 0.32, R 2 = 0.465, p < 0.001). The Process Macro was used to conduct mediation analysis, which confirmed that the relationship between training and performance was mediated by entrepreneurial skills to some extent (partial effect). The total effect estimate was 0.6497, the direct effect was 0.3925, and the indirect effect was 0.2715; the 95% confidence interval of the indirect effect (0.1661 to 0.3796) did not contain zero, which proves the statistical significance. The study therefore suggests that microfinance banks ought to incorporate entrepreneurial skills training in their training programs to make the women owned businesses more sustainable and successful. Specific attention must be given to the strengthening of financial management, marketing and business planning competencies to ensure that microfinance interventions achieve maximum effect.