Factors influencing performance of irrigation cooperatives in Embu county, Kenya
View/ Open
Date
2018Author
Njiru, EmilyWanjeru
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Irrigation cooperatives in the past years were seen as main source of income in communities.
Members of these cooperatives depended entirely on cooperatives to cater for health, financial
and education needs of their families. Currently people have shifted their focus from these
cooperatives to other financial institution while a significant number of irrigation cooperatives
have closed down. This study therefore sought to determine the factors that influence
performance of irrigation cooperatives. The guiding objectives of the study were to assess how
levels of education and training of members and organized marketing of irrigation cooperative
produce on the performance of the cooperatives, assessing the influence of governance structure
and the influence of technology applicationon existing cooperatives. Performance of irrigation
cooperatives formed the dependent variable while the factors that influence theperformance
formed the independent variables. This study adopted a descriptive research design. The
population of the study was1552members. Through random sampling a sample of 161 members
was obtained and data was collected using questionnaires. Validity of the instruments was
ensured through opinions and expert judgments of university experts. Reliability of the
instruments was estimated using split half technique through a pilot study in TharakaNithi
County. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics with the help of
the Statistical Package for Social Sciences.The study found that Irrigation cooperatives offers
scholarship for the staff and the response in the study indicates that 54.04% strongly agreed
while 40.99% agreed. This concludes that 95.03% of the members of the irrigation cooperatives
believe scholarship to staff has great impact on the performance. It is further revealed that
Cooperatives offering Seminars, workshops and where conferences are open for all members of
staff, out of 161 respondents who participated in the study 90.9% strongly agreed, 9.1% agreed.
The findings showed that the influence of Product promotion through advertisement whereby out
all respondents who participated in the study 64.59% strongly agreed, 27.32% agreed, and these
provided a total of 91.92% of the total respondents who agreed that advertisements has great
influence towards the performance of irrigation cooperatives. The study showed that governance
structure met all legal requirements and out of 161 respondents who participated in the study
60.86% strongly agreed to this and 39.13% agreed. This concludes to a 100% of the respondents
agreeing thus the study established that governance functions are very influential on the
performance of irrigation cooperatives. The results on how technology influences performance of
irrigation cooperatives in Embu County established that systems had been installed to enhance
transaction processing, technology enhances accuracy, reliability of irrigation cooperatives and
that information systems bring information timeliness, and technology allows for a reduction in
transactions costs and timely communication. It is revealed that 78.26% said technology
influence on systems enhancing transaction processing is very influential to performance and
21.73% agreed on it being influential. The study concluded that level of education and training,
organized marketing for products, governance structure and technology significantly affects the
performance of irrigation cooperatives in Embu County. The study recommended that irrigation
cooperatives should continuously check on the levels of education and train their members, adopt
new forms of organized marketing for products, enhance their governance structure and adopt
new and the current forms of technology. This study will be of important to the government and
policy makers because they will be able to determine how to sustain and improve operations of
existing irrigation cooperatives.This study will also be of immense help to academicians and
researchers in providing useful literature
Citation
Master of Arts in Project Planning and Management, University of NairobiPublisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [6020]
The following license files are associated with this item: