EFFECT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ATTRIBUTES ON PERFORMANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN KENYA. A CASE OF NAIROBI COUNTY
Abstract
This study sought to establish whether entrepreneurial attributes influence the performance of SMEs in Kenya. The study adopted descriptive research design. The target population was 202 respondents. The firms having established structures in place and they were the fastest growing small medium sized firms in Kenya, it was easy to trace their performance for a given period of time. Stratified random sampling was used to select a sample of 133 Top high performers, small and medium firms which was drawn from the stratum. The study was limited to survey variables of resourcefulness, pro-activeness, risk taking and innovation. Further, questionnaires were administered as the research instrument to SMEs. In addition, pretesting of the questionnaires was done to determine validity and reliability. Further, Statistical Package for Social Science version 21 (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected. Quantitative data was analysed by descriptive and inferential analysis. Further, descriptive design involved was measured of central tendency which included the mode, mean and median. Also, involved was measures of dispersion which was range, standard deviation and variance. Finally, inferential design was analysed through multiple regression analysis to determine the relationship between the selected variables. Basing on the study results of the ANOVA Test or F-test in obtaining results, a good response rate of 96% was experienced and the study found that there is positive relationship between resourcefulness, pro-activeness, risk taking and innovation and performance of SMEs. R squared was 0.682 implying that there was 68.2% variation of performance of SMEs firms, due to the changes of resourcefullness , proactiveness, risk taking and innovation. The remaining 31.8% implied that there were other factors that affect performance of SMEs which were not discussed in the study.
Key Words: resourcefulness, pro-activeness, risk taking, innovation, SMEs
CITATION: Andenyi, B., & Nyang’au, S. P. (2018). Effect of entrepreneurial attributes on performance of small and medium enterprises in Kenya. A case of Nairobi County. The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management, 5(4), 2015-2031.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.61426/sjbcm.v5i4.1003
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