Generic business strategies in the Micro and Small Enterprise typology: an empirical investigation among Nairobi Manufacturing Micro and Small Enterprises

Abstract

Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) play a significant role in Sub-Saharan Africa national economies, however, few transition to formal medium or large size enterprises due to a wide array of challenges faced. The MSE typology sought to provide an array of business strategies MSEs could use to overcome these challenges and improve their performance. A central foundation of the typology is the generic nature of the strategies, that is general applicability across industry, organization type or size. The general objective of this study, therefore, was to determine the extent to which the business strategies within the typology are indeed generic. The study evaluated the generalization across two sub-sectors (Furniture manufacturing and agro-food processing) as well as across gender (taken as male and female). From the study, and using binary logistic regression only two of the twenty-eight variables were statistically significant, albeit mild discriminant, therefore supporting generalizability across sub-sectors. In addition, none of the variables served as statistically significant discriminants between male or female owners. Though limited in scope the generic nature of the defined strategies was established, providing support for the MSE typology meeting the generic requirement from typology theory.