FACTORS INFLUENCING GROWTH OF SMALL BUSINESSES: A CASE STUDY OF NAKURU TOWN
Abstract
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), still dominate the economic landscape of most countries and have been recognized in contributing greatly to their GDPs. The SMEs form a larger percentage of businesses that operate in Kenya as compared to the large companies. The Government of Kenya in their vision 2030 have tried to put enabling environment in their quest to be a middle economy for growth of small business enterprises by that time, although the owners/directors of small business continue to face challenges in running these enterprises.
The general objective of this study was to identify the factors that lead to slow growth of small business enterprises with specific reference to Nakuru town. The study was guided by specific objective, that is to find out whether lack of management skills, whether inadequate capital to slow growth of small business enterprises.
The literature explored four main influencing factors in the study, namely, management skills and adequate working capital forming the independent variables in the theoretical/conceptual framework that influence the depend variable, that is slow growth in small businesses.
The study adopted a descriptive research design on a target population of 200 small businesses operating in Nakuru town. The primary data was obtained through questionnaires and interviews and data analysis using descriptive statistics
Overall study found that Management Skills and Adequate Working Capital, individually influence of Growth of Small Business Enterprises of 71%, 85%, 92%, and 77% respectively. Thus Business Registration posed as having the highest influence to growth of Small Businesses.
Key Word: Small Businesses
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.61426/sjbcm.v2i1.102
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