SELECTED FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN RUN SMALL ENTERPRISES IN LANGATA SUB COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

ABSTRACT All over the world, it is generally accepted that women run Small Enterprises (SEs) are becoming increasingly important in employment, wealth creation, and development of innovation. Literature indicates that small enterprises encounter many challenges some of which are access to finance, access to entrepreneurial education and training, government support and high lending interest rates. Resulting from these challenges, many of these enterprises perform dismally and fail to grow. The problem that this study addressed is that women run small enterprises grow less rapidly and are likely to close sooner than other enterprises. The foregoing informed the study to assess selected factors that may influence the survival of women run SEs and progress them to the growth phase of the organizational life cycle. The study was guided by four objectives where it sought to determine the extent to which access to financial resources, entrepreneurial education and training (EET), government support and levels of interest rates influence the performance of women run small enterprises in Kenya. The research design adopted was descriptive and targeted a population of 118 small women run enterprises in Langata Sub-County. A sample size of 91 enterprises was obtained through a scientific formula upon which a questionnaire was administered. Cronbach‟s alpha was used to test internal consistency of the instrument. Data was analysed descriptively and results and findings presented in frequency tables and charts. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the strength of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The findings of the study is that access to EET, government support and level of interest rates influenced performance of women run small enterprises positively while access to finance influenced performance negatively. The analysis of variance further showed that the regression model sufficiently explained the variation in performance of women run small enterprises in Langata Sub-County. The study recommends that financial institutions avail financial resources to small enterprises at affordable rates. Moreover women run SEs should seek more EET which would enable them to run their enterprises better. The study also recommends that the government should increase its financial and legal support to women run SEs because the study found that the support improved their performance. Finally the study recommends women run SEs should continue to seek funding from financial institutions in pursuit of growth and better performance. The study suggests that further research be conducted in other sub-counties of Nairobi County and Kenya at large to establish whether the factors selected for this study consistently influences performance of women- run small enterprises in those sub-counties