Factors Affecting Entrepreneurship Development of Mobile Money Within the Telecommunication Sector in Kenya

Abstract

In today’s turbulent job market, starting and having own business venture is a dream of young generation. Telecommunication companies like Airtel, Orange and Safaricom through their mobile money platforms have provided a platform that entrepreneurs can use to start their businesses as mobile money agents. However, mobile money agents have been facing various challenges in their businesses. This study therefore sought to determine the factors affecting entrepreneurship development of mobile money within the telecommunication sector in Kenya. This study will adopt a descriptive research design. The target population was all the 1877 retail agents of Mpesa, Airtel Money and Orange Money in Nairobi Central Business District (CBD). Simple random sampling was therefore used to select 10% of the target population and hence the sample size was 188 mobile money agents. The study used primary data that was collected by use of structured questionnaires. The questionnaires generated quantitative data, which was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics through the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. Data was then presented in graphs and tables. The study found that financial and economic factors were affecting entrepreneurship development of mobile money within the telecommunication sector the most, followed by government related factors, education related factors, technological factors, psychological factors and socio cultural factors. The study recommends that the government of Kenya should develop more policies to improve access to credit by increasing awareness of Women enterprise Fund and Youth Development Fund. The County governments in collaboration with the national government should develop training programs that can be held bi-yearly to improve the financial and managerial skills of entrepreneurs in Kenya. This will help to reduce the collapse rate of SMEs in Kenya.