Entrepreneurship Education and Performance of Women Owned Small and Micro Enterprises in Mombasa County, Kenya

Abstract

The study sought to establish the relationship between entrepreneurship education and performance of women owned Small and Micro enterprises in Mombasa County, Kenya. The study sought to investigate the following objectives; establish the effects of financial literacy on the performance of women owned SMEs in Mombasa County, investigate the influence of technological knowhow on performance of women owned SMEs in Mombasa County, explore the influence of marketing knowledge on performance of women owned SMEs in Mombasa County, Kenya. The study was anchored on business theory, the Human capital theory and Jovanovich’s life cycle model. The target population was 430 women entrepreneurs who formed 15 active groups in Equity Bank Limited Moi Avenue Mombasa SME section and had attended some form of education facilitated by the bank. The study applied descriptive research design on a sample of 44 women SMEs owners. Questionnaires were used as a research tool to collect primary data. For the purpose of this research, primary data collected was compared with the available secondary data for the literature review. The data collected was then analysed using descriptive (percentages, mean, standard deviation) and inferential (correlation and regression) analysis. Data collected was pre-processed to eliminate unwanted and unusable data. A coding system was developed by assigning codes and scales from responses which were then summarised and analysed using Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS version 23). Financial literacy was found to have a positive influence on performance of women owned SMEs while technological knowledge and marketing knowledge did not have a positive influence on performance of women owned businesses. Data was presented using frequency tables, pie charts and percentages. From the findings, majority (62.5%) of the respondents indicated that calculating business ratios was a challenge which implied that they may not be able to report the performance of their businesses. The study recommends that the government establishes an entrepreneurship education curriculum, regulates entrepreneurship education providers, and adopts a measure of performance for SMEs in the country. The researcher suggests that future research on this area employ personal interviews to facilitate the collection of data from women entrepreneurs who cannot read and write. The researcher further suggests that similar studies be conducted in the country to investigate why women SME owners prefer to measure performance using sales rather than profit. Further the researcher suggests that more studies be conducted in Mombasa County on the other factors that influence performance of women owned SMEs.