IMPACT OF TRAINING ON THE PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN KENYA THE CASE OF MERU TOWN
Agnes Ajuna - Master of Business Administration, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya
Dr. Joseph Ntale - Senior Lecturer, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya
Dr. Thomas Ngui - Senior Lecturer, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya
ABSTRACT
The small and medium enterprises being the major agents of economic growth and employment, in Kenya, over 60% of small businesses of women are estimated to fail each year at start-up. Thus, the Government of Kenya conceived the idea of institutional financing, women enterprise fund (WEF), to provide women with access to finance for self-employment activities and entrepreneurial skills development as a way of addressing unemployment and poverty which essentially are women problems. Despite the introduction of women enterprise fund, women are still performing poorly even in the face of financial assistance. The causes for the failure in women owned SMES is not yet well established. The lack of information has been cited as one of the reasons why there have been minimal successes in improving the women-owned SMEs. The purpose of the study was to establish the effect of training on the performance of women entrepreneurship in Meru Town, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of interest is 568 registered female entrepreneurs in Meru County (Ministry of Trade and Commerce –Meru County. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample the study grouped the population into strata in this case using the Type of business activity. From the strata, the study will select 229 respondents. Primary data was obtained using self-administered questionnaires. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics in form of percentages, frequencies standard deviations and means. Linear regression model was used to estimate the effect of training on the performance of women enterprises. The findings were presented using tables and figures. The study established that mentorship influence performance of women entrepreneurship to a great extent, learning from a mentor can help mentees (women entrepreneurs) avoid making errors in business decisions, mentors help young entrepreneurs decide where they want to be in the future, mentoring enables women entrepreneurs to realize their potential and manner to achieve it. Thus, the study concludes that mentorship positively encouraged women entrepreneurship in Meru Town, Kenya. The study concludes that apprenticeship influence performance of women entrepreneurship to a great extent in that it is an effective tool to build talent in entrepreneurship. The study also concludes that coaching influenced performance of women entrepreneurship to a great extent as it plays an instrumental role in pushing the boundaries of performance of the individual women entrepreneurs from the 'ordinary' to the 'extraordinary', i.e. stretching one's own capacity beyond their comfort zone, into a new realm of opportunity or possibility. The study therefore recommends that there is pressing need to boost technical and vocational training institutes for women to ensure there is effective admission of entrepreneurial training. The curriculum should be strengthened to provide a holistic education which provides women entrepreneurs with skills in management, production, sales and marketing among others increased access to financial services for women small and medium enterprises could be critical for economic empowerment.
