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Risk Management Strategies and Performance of Non-withdrawable Deposit Taking Savings and Credit Societies in Nairobi City County, Kenya
(Kenyatta University, 2024-09) Oluoch, Lilian Akinyi
Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOS) provide savings and credit facilities to their members and like other organizations in the financial sector, it undergoes several economic challenges which threaten their growth. The non-withdrawable deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies subsector have undergone performance failures leading to some collapsing, hence the necessity of a successful risk management plan in order to meet their goals. The specific objectives of this research were to determine the effect of risk avoidance, risk acceptance, risk reduction and risk transfer on performance of non-withdrawable deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in Nairobi County. Variables of analysis were the risk management strategies which included risk avoidance, reduction, acceptance, and transfer. The research was grounded on modern portfolio and agency theories. For this investigation, a descriptive research design was used and the target population constituted of 132 non-withdrawable deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in Nairobi County. A census method was employed to choose the Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies with a sample size of 132. The study had a total population of 132 respondents. Primary data was gathered by semi structured questionnaires, and secondary data came from documented information in regulatory bodies reports, journals, books amongst others. Research instruments were tested for validity and reliability. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the study to analyse the data. During the entire study, ethical considerations was adhered to. The results of the investigation demonstrated that risk acceptance and risk avoidance have a positive relationship with performance and a significant effect. Similarly, the findings showed that risk reduction was negatively significant in predicting the performance of non-withdrawable Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies. However, the study revealed that risk transfer was slightly insignificant in forecasting the effectiveness of non-withdrawable deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies at 95% confidence level. Therefore, the investigation concluded that risk avoidance, risk acceptance, and risk reduction are key risk management strategies that may affect how the non-withdrawable deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in Nairobi city perform. Additionally, risk transfer does not significantly impact performance of non-withdrawable deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in Nairobi City. The study recommends that researchers can further explore and expand upon the findings of this investigation to better understand the connection between risk management strategies, and the performance of non-withdrawable deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in other counties and other financial institutions.
Working Capital Management Practices and Financial Performances of Private Hospitals in Nakuru County, Kenya
(Kenyatta University, 2024-10) Ondieki, Olgar Kemuma
Private health sector plays very fundamental role in the health sector in Kenya because it complements service delivery by the public health service providers. Besides offering health services to the general public, these providers are business entities whose primary objectives is to maximize returns on investment and other facets of profitability. As such, they face the challenge of realizing the foregoing financial objective. Since private hospitals are profit oriented besides providing alternative health care from public hospitals, falsification of financial statements, exaggeration of revenue and misstatement of expenses occur in order to meet the shareholder interests and expectation. In Kenya it is noted that small scale private health providers with small primary health care facilities face financial challenges. It is observed that the entities struggle to remain financially viable and as such the quality of their services differ. The general study objective was to assess the working capital management practices’ impact on private hospitals’ financial performance in Nakuru County. Specifically, the study sought to establish the effect of cash management, inventory management practices, and accounts receivables management practices and accounts payable period on private hospitals’ financial performance in Nakuru County. This study used the pecking order theory, transaction cost theory the Keynesian liquidity preference theory and agency theory. The unit of observation was 15 large private hospitals in Nakuru County while the unit of analysis was 52 employees from finance, store and procurement department in these hospitals. Data processing and analysis was done using SPSS software. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was employed in data analysis. From the analysis the study found that taxes imposed on the purchases medicines and medical equipment’s negatively affects firms’ financial performance. The study also revealed that high salaries lowers the amount of cash to be invested which affects the firm’s financial performance. The study concluded that there was a positive and statistically significant correlation between cash management practices on financial performance of private hospitals in Nakuru County (r = 0.443; p < 0.05). The study also concluded that there was a positive and statistically significant correlation between inventory management practices on financial performance of private hospitals in Nakuru County, (r = 0.441; p < 0.05). The study further concluded that there was a strong positive correlation existed between accounts receivables management practices and financial performance of private hospitals in Nakuru County (r = 0.541; p < 0.05). The study also revealed that there was a strong positive correlation existed between accounts payable period on financial performance of private hospitals in Nakuru County (r = 0.641; p < 0.05). The study recommends that the hospital should adopt contemporary cash management practices, because proper cash management helps the business to have the required cash to run the daily activities. By generating enough cash, the hospital can meet its everyday business needs and avoid taking on debt. The study further recommended that the hospital should manage their accounts receivable effectively because, quality healthcare accounts receivable management is the primary requirement to keep the monthly cash flow of the medical practice healthy.
Attitude towards Information Communications Technology and Interventions among Teacher Trainees in Public Primary Teacher Training Colleges in Machakos County, Kenya
(Kenyatta University, 2024-11) Kilonzo, John Musyimi
Over the past few years, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has tremendously transformed the ways of teaching and learning. Recently, the Kenyan educational system has increasingly been financing the use of ICT devices into the educational sector. However, the teaching of the ICT subject in teacher colleges neglects students’ attitudes towards computers. This study sought to explore the attitude towards Information Communication Technology subject and intervention measures applied among primary school teacher trainees to promote a positive attitude towards ICT in public primary teacher training colleges in Machakos County in Kenya. The study was guided by the following objectives: to determine the proportions of teacher trainees’ attitudes towards ICT; to assess the challenges influencing teacher trainees attitudes towards computers; to establish the influence of computer experience on teacher trainees attitudes toward ICT; investigate the influence of specialisation in science or arts on teacher trainees attitudes towards ICT, establish gender differences in trainees’ attitude towards ICT and to find out the intervention measures on teacher trainees attitudes towards ICT in public teacher training colleges in Machakos County. This study was guided by B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning theory (1954) and the social learning theory of Albert Bandura (1971). The descriptive survey designed was used for the research. The target population of the study was 400 second year teacher trainees. The investigation used Krejcie & Morgan (1970) formula to select the sample size of 49%. Simple random sampling technique was used to choose five out of the ten second year streams of the college for the study. It was hoped that the results were to be generalized to the entire country, Kenya. The study used a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from teacher trainees and the test-retest approach to determine the reliability of the instrument during piloting. The research tool's Cronbach's alpha was 0.76. The expert approval was used to test the validity of the instruments. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 26) was used to code and input the data, then analyse it using descriptive statistics. The data was presented in tables and in figures. The study found that the majority (93.3%) of the teacher trainees had a positive attitude towards ICT. The majority (74%) of the respondents cited the subject not being examined by the Kenya National Examinations Council as their greatest challenge to learning ICT in teacher training colleges. Results also showed trainees' positive attitudes toward computers were influenced by their duration of computer experience, although gender and their concentration in the sciences or the arts had little bearing on this. For the majority of trainees (88.8%), the primary intervention strategy utilized to foster positive attitudes toward ICT in the college consisted of ICT teachers persistently persuading trainees of the utility of ICT for them. In conclusion, the most significant challenge for the respondents, 74% was discouragement of learning of ICT in teacher Training colleges due to lack of a national examination for the subject. Therefore, this study recommends that, there should be a national examination for the ICT subject to encourage all trainees to learn ICT more seriously than before.
Corporate Social Responsibilities and Performance of Commercial Banks in Nairobi City County, Kenya
(Kenyatta University, 2024-11) Kairanya, Rose Nkirote
Most commercial banks in Kenya have struggled to maintain high organizational performance because of the country's increasingly unstable and competitive economic environment. Reduced profitability among commercial banks could be attributed to decreased market share due to increased number of other financial institutions including micro finance institutions and savings and credit co-operatives. In order to survive and enhance its performance, commercial banks need to be flexible and position themselves strategically. Corporate social responsibility is among the strategies that the commercial banks have adopted to address the problem of poor performance. Therefore, the main objective was to examine how corporate social responsibilities affects performance of chosen Kenyan commercial banks in Nairobi City County. Specifically, the study intended to examine how environmental, community, employee, and customer-based corporate social responsibility initiatives affected performance of chosen Kenyan commercial banks in Nairobi City County. The research was based on stakeholder theory, resource-based view theory, institutional theory, and agency theory. The study used an explanatory research design. The targeted population was 152 management staff drawn from human resource department and department of strategy and operations. The study sampled 91 participants. The questionnaire was used for collecting the primary data. The questionnaires were distributed using drop and pick later approach. Analysis of the data was through descriptives such as frequencies, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The inferential statistics like regression analysis was used for establish how corporate social responsibility influenced organizational performances of commercial banks. The research results were highlighted in Tables. The study established environmental based corporate social responsibility (β=0.698; p= 0.019), community-based corporate social responsibility (β=0.764; p=0.001), employee-based CSRs (β=0.846; p=0.000), customer-based corporate social responsibility results into (β=0.793; p=0.004) had substantial effects on performances of commercial banks. The study concluded that environmental based corporate social responsibility, community-based corporate social responsibility, employee-based corporate social responsibility and customer-based corporate social responsibility substantially affected the performances of commercial banks in Nairobi City County. Based on first objective, The study recommends that commercial banks in Nairobi City County should develop and implement an efficient waste management system. The study recommends that the bank needs to adopt a comprehensive strategy for managing its carbon emissions and reporting its carbon footprint. Based on second objective, the research recommended that commercial bank's management need to maintain and intensify investments in corporate social responsibility programs aimed at enhancing beneficiaries’ lives particularly in education, health and other humanitarian efforts. Based on third objective, the study recommends that commercial banks should come with strategies to ensure provision of learning and development opportunities for its employees which would foster a skilled and capable workforce. Regarding the fourth objective, the study recommends that commercial banks should implement personalized services and communication strategies that focus on understanding each client's unique needs.
Biochemical Markers Analysis for Sars-Cov-2 Infected Patients in Kakamega County, Kenya
(Kenyatta University, 2024-07) Njue, Gatavi Lilian
Aims and objectives: Severe Acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2(SARS-CoV-2) is a type of coronavirus that first emerged in Wuhan, China late 2019. Once this virus infects any person, it causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) capable of causing death. Since then, hundreds of thousands of deaths have been reported as a result of COVID-19 globally. It is critical to detect the people with the potential of becoming very sick with COVID-19 early enough in order to save their lives by testing blood for certain chemicals known as biomarkers. This study aimed to determine biochemical markers in SARS-COV-2 infected patients in Kakamega County, Kenya. The Selected biochemical markers LFT, RFT, electrolytes, blood glucose level C-reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), were also evaluated for correlation with disease severity.
Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 350 patients with COVID 19 attending Kakamega County general teaching and Referral Hospital. Ethical approval was sought from Kenyatta University Ethical and research committee and permission was obtained from Kakamega county general teaching and referral hospital administration. Socio-demographic, clinical characteristics of covid-19 among admitted patients in Kakamega Country Referral hospital was collected using a questionnaire. Five (5ml) of venous blood was collected and analyzed using standard hematological parameters profile, assessment of liver, renal and cardiac functions tests and evaluation of High-sensitivity C-Reactive protein.
Results: A total of 350 patients were enrolled in the study. Majority of the participants were male (52.9%, 185/350) while 165(47.1%) were female. Out of the 350 patients recruited, 296 (84.6%) were Covid-19 positive while 44 (15.1%) were negative. This indicated a high prevalence of 84.6% of Covid-19 among patents who attended the facility during the study period. Data presentation was done using tables and figures and analyzed using formula of Le and Boen, Chi square and Correlation tests.
Conclusions: Out of the 350 patients recruited, 296 (84.6%) were Covid-19 positive while 44 (15.1%) were negative. This indicated a high prevalence of 84.6% of Covid-19 among patents who attended the facility during the study period. Biochemical markers of the liver (ALT, AST), Total bilirubin, blood protein were elevated among Covid-19 positive patients, while albumin was low among Covid-19 negative patients.