The Influence of Intellectual Capital on the Perfomance of Small and Medium Enterprises a Case of Mombasa County Kenya

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises in Kenya represent a vital part of the economy, being the source of various economic contributions through; the generation of income via exporting, providing new job opportunities, introducing innovations, stimulating competition, and engine for employment. Intellectual capital appears as the most important and vital component of a knowledge-based economy. Moreover, in the present economy, small and medium enterprises are facing tremendous challenges and threats to survive in a competitive environment. The impact of intellectual capital on the general performance of the Small and medium enterprises has become a very important issue now than ever, this is due to the level of globalization of whose outcomes are privatization and deregulation of markets, aggressive competition and the ever-rising expectations of customers. As a result of this, there is need for businesses to be at their best in order to be relevant in the environment. The paper therefore examines the influence of intellectual capital and performance of small and medium enterprise in Mombasa County-Kenya. Most of the studies conducted on the role of intellectual capital have focused on the developed countries outside Africa. It is therefore imperative to explore the role of intellectual capital on this important sector of the economy. From the findings, management‟s technical skills influenced the performance of small and medium enterprise, mostly followed by managerial experience. Further, the drive/impetus to entrepreneurship influenced the growth of small and medium enterprise mostly followed by risk taking propensity among all the entrepreneurial skills factors.