Influence of entrepreneurial training on performance of youth enterprises: a case of stryde project in Nyeri county, Kenya

Abstract

The Growth of youth entrepreneurship is in line with the National Development Agenda by the government. The Agenda seeks to instill rapid and sustained economic growth, and reduce the high incidence of poverty through creation of employment opportunities. The study assessed the influence of entrepreneurial training on the performance of youth enterprises in Nyeri County. It has six administrative divisions namely Tetu, Kieni, Mathira, Othaya, Mukurwe-ini and Nyeri Municipality. The problem investigated in this study arose from a gap that has been created from past research, in that no research has concentrated on the area of the influence of entrepreneurial training on the performance of youth enterprises in Nyeri County. This is further affected by the proliferation of institutions offering the youth entrepreneurial training, without really assessing if at all this training makes a difference afterwards. Such training is ideally aimed at improving the livelihoods of the trainees as it opens up new fronts for making a living. However, whether it does or does not is rarely ever sought. The few studies that have been done have mostly focused on the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF). The objective of this study was to assess the influence of financial management skills, innovation, access to credit facilities and access to market on the performance of youth enterprises, which are owned by youths who have been trained by Technoserve under the STRYDE project. Performance of the said enterprises was assessed by looking at their growth rates as well as profitability. Scholarly articles were reviewed, focusing on the objectives of the study and as well as on the dependent variable. The global outlook was first considered, funneling down to the country and further down to this specific county. The research used descriptive survey design method, to help assess the situation as it is. Questionnaires were used to collect data. The population of 812 was purposively sampled from the three beneficiary constituencies of the county, stratified into male and female, then further selected using the simple random sampling. The Krejcie and Morgan table was used to arrive at the final sample size. The data collected was analyzed by the use of descriptive analysis method and presented in tables. Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient revealed that there was weak negative relationship (-0.142) between innovation and performance of youth enterprises. The findings of the study indicate that the majority of the youth start their own businesses due to lack of formal employment opportunities as opposed to innovation. Pearson Correlation on access to credit revealed that there was weak positive relationship (0.215) between access to credit and performance of youth enterprises. The findings revealed that majority of the youth face challenges when accessing finances from financial institutions which hinders performance. Pearson Correlation on financial management skills also revealed that there was weak positive relationship (0.231) between training of financial management skills and performance of youth enterprises. Based on the findings, the study conclude that entrepreneurial training be conducted to enhance the performance of youth enterprises since good financial management is critical to the success of any business and without it, a business can be set for failure from the start. Based on the findings, the study recommended that commercials banks should reconsider the youth credit requirements and policy in order to reduce credit access barriers.