EFFECTS OF BUSINESS SUPPORT SERVICES ON PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN OWNED SMALL AND MICRO ENTERPRISES IN MATHARE SLUMS, NAIROBI COUNTY
Rose Atieno Nyadida - School of Business & Economics, Kisii University, Kenya
Prof. Rev. Willys Otuya - Lecturer, School of Business & Economics, Kisii University, Kenya
Prof. Christopher Ngacho - Associate Professor, Department of Management Science, Kisii University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Business support services are divided into two non-financial and financial. Business supports available to women are varied and ranges from issuance of legal advice in trading licenses, reduced financing rates on borrowed loans, marketing access services and technology which are mostly centered in urban areas and is worse in the rural areas. Women are not aware of support services available to them and financing institutions do not have alternative mechanisms to support women without collateral. Even though involvement of Government Business Support in promoting SMEs increases business performance especially where networking and a global trading environment is provided, the same government still hinders business development of SMEs by putting in place high levels of bureaucracy in government lending agencies. The purpose of the study was to assess the effect of business support services on performance of small and micro enterprises in Mathare slums in Nairobi County. The independent variables in the study are women enterprise development funds, entrepreneurial education and training and table banking. The dependent variable is performance of small and micro enterprises. The moderating variable is government policy on SMEs. The study was anchored on Entrepreneurial Feminist Theory, Capital Theory and Human Capital Theory. The study adopted descriptive design. Correlation analysis was used to determine the association between business support services and performance of small and micro enterprises. Target population for this study is 995 owned businesses. The sample size of this study is 313 comprised of women owned Small Micro Enterprises. Validity was done using construct validity which was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was achieved through testing and retesting of instruments under same conditions to check out for consistency in results as such a pilot study was conducted in Kibera with 10% of the sample size. Findings of the study were presented using tables, graphs and statistical parameters. The study sought to investigate the effect of women enterprise development funds on performance of women owned small and micro enterprises in Mathare slums in Nairobi County. The results indicated that access to information regarding loans from Banks, SACCOs and WEF had highest mean. Accessing funds for beginning an enterprise is the biggest challenge for women entrepreneurs. The study showed that there is a positive correlation between table banking support services and performance as indicated by correlation value r .447** and p=.000<0.05. Government policy had a positive correlation and significant on performance as shown correlation r .483** and p=.000<.05. The study suggested for another research to be conducted to investigate the effect of women enterprise development funds on performance of small and medium enterprises in Kenya or other countries.