Dr. Damaris Monari, Dr Juliana Asser

ABSTRACT

Despite the importance of women owned businesses in contributing to the economic development and industrialization in Kenya economy, the rate at which women owned businesses are failing is high. Many women owned enterprises have stagnated and those established are collapsing at a high rate in the early stages of growth. Effort should therefore be expended towards contributing to the growth and sustainability of women owned businesses. This will go in a long way towards contributing to the achievement of the Vision 2030 through economic growth, poverty eradication and reducing the vulnerability of women. This research therefore, investigated the influence of socio-cultural factors, entrepreneurial training, funding, adoption of ICT and networking opportunities on sustainability of women owned businesses in Mombasa County. The target population comprised of women owned businesses that are older than 1 year and operating their businesses in Mvita and Nyali Sub-Counties. The study adopted a descriptive design targeting a population of 260 women entrepreneurs in the sectors of wholesale and retail, beauty and cosmetics, food and beverage, textiles and services. A proportionate sample of 158 female entrepreneurs was drawn from the target population using stratified random sampling. Questionnaires were the main instrument of data collection and collected quantitative and qualitative data. The data was coded and analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential analysis through SPSS version 23. The analyzed data was summarized and presented in form of tables. From the descriptive statistics results, a small extent of influence was obtained on socio-cultural factors (x̅=2.24), entrepreneurial factors (x̅=2.91), ICT factors (x̅=2.61) and networking factors (x̅=2.73). On funding factors, moderate extent of influence was as indicated (x̅=3.39). Overall, the businesses were also established to have low sustainability levels having an average mean score of 2.04 and standard deviation of 1.048. From the correlation analysis results, Socio-Cultural practices had a Pearson Correlation of 0.024, Entrepreneurial Training had a Pearson Correlation of -0.077, Funding had a Pearson Correlation of -0.297, ICT Adoption had a Pearson Correlation of 0.199 and Networking Opportunities had a Pearson Correlation of 0.430. This shows that all the variables except Entrepreneurial Training and Funding had a positive effect on the sustainability of women owned businesses in Mombasa County. From the regression analysis results, the factors studied explain up 31.7% of the total variation of the sustainability of women owned businesses in Mombasa County (R²=0.317). The study therefore makes the conclusion that the current sustainability of women owned businesses in Mombasa County may be accounted largely by these factors as they affect not only the internal but also external operations of the firms. The study recommends increased access to financial services for women small and medium enterprises which is critical for economic empowerment. The study recommends that female entrepreneurs should be committed to identifying new opportunities including the use of technology. The study recommends that mentorship programmes should be put in place where women entrepreneurs work under experienced entrepreneurs in their trade areas. A center for entrepreneurship programmes need to be established as well as having the Government establishing an entrepreneurship policy that will empower entrepreneurs. Women who have become successful in their areas of operation should be encouraged to form networks and this can help boost entrepreneurship. The study further recommends that the government and other regulatory bodies to create favourable policies on promoting sustainable practices in the women owned SMEs.