| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the study is to examine on the socio-cultural factors influencing the performance of entrepreneurs in Mombasa County. Women especially those living in the rural communities
the urban poor still face daunting challenges. It has been noted that women enterprises are smaller, less likely to grow, less profitable and begin less capital investment than those owned by men. Despite the absolute increase in number of women in self-employment in recent years, there still exist significant differences in the level of new firm creation across gender and the number of women involved in starting business is significantly and systematically lower than that of men. There are a large number of women in Mombasa County but they are not yet well exploiting existing entrepreneurship opportunities to contribute towards economic development. One of the reasons for this might be the education gap of women entrepreneurs in entrepreneurship.
This forces entrepreneurs in entrepreneurship not to contribute a lot to the poverty reduction of the town, region and the country as a whole. A number of initiatives have been taken by Government, donors and Non-Governmental organizations both local and international to increase the start-up rates and performance of women owned entrepreneurship in Kenya. Nevertheless, women in the sector are still found predominantly in low-performance rates, earning lower revenues than their male counter parts. For many women, their involvement in business activities has yet to bring them to the point of economic sustainability and advance them in a manner that is beneficial to them and to the economy I in general. The literature reviewed showed the extent of the factors in the overall performance of women in entrepreneurship as stated in the conceptual framework.
Prior literature has indicated that women possess different characteristics and thus strengths and/or weaknesses compared to men. As such, the collection of data on the profile, experience, management skill and competency, size and sector. In line with the social learning theory, the parents must be encouraged to motivate their children, particularly daughters to venture into entrepreneurship, In the past decades, many of these parents are employees and therefore, they would expect their child to become one too. However, with the strong economic growth and greater awareness on entrepreneurship, many new ventures have surfaced. A quantitative, descriptive design was used to study a sample of 200 women entrepreneurs engaged in 5 sectors was taken for the study. In the process of answering the basic questions, a questionnaire that include demographic profiles, characteristics of women entrepreneurs and their enterprises, factors that affect the performance of women entrepreneurs in entrepreneurships and supports entrepreneurship acquire.
The study was carried out using a structured questionnaire for respondents and a discussion guide for key informants all administered through scheduled interviews based upon the theory of planned behavior. This study described the characteristics of certain groups, estimated the proportion of people who have certain characteristics and made predictions. Stratified sampling method was used to compare entrepreneurial practices at the same point in time. The design that was chosen for this study was due to its ability to ensure minimization of bias and maximization of reliability of evidence collected.
The qualitative and quantitative data collected various sectors revealed the overall performance in the different areas of research which indicated how women entrepreneurship had been influenced in Mombasa County. In this chapter, the strengths, opportunities, challenges and threats were outlined in line with their profiles and thus informed how decision making in terms of entrepreneurship for women could get a new twist in the development area. All the aspects of women entrepreneurship including their experience, diversity in skills on their management and competency, religious influence, education and training were realized and conclusion made part of the assessment in the performance indicators. The inferences made herein gave rise to the determination of the further areas of research. | en_US |
