Business Management Training On Performance Of Youth Owned Small And Medium Enterprises In Nakuru County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Effective management training and development programs are aimed at improving the managers’ performance. Small and micro enterprises have widely been recognized as the major source of employment for many households in developing countries. However, three out of five SMEs fail within the first three years of operation and those that continue 80 percent fail before the fifth year attributed to poor performance and consistent losses. It is against this background that the researcher attempted to study business management training and their relationship to SME performance. The general objective was to study business management training and its relationship to SME performance in youth owned SMEs in Nakuru County. The researcher used descriptive research design. For the purpose of this study the target population consisted of all the 635 SMEs who had access to business management training under the Improve Your Business (IYB) training programme offered by Kenya Institute of Business Training to youth owned SME. The sample size was 95 registered SMEs which constituted 15% of the population. Primary data was used in this study. The questionnaire was piloted for validity proof by discussing with three respondents at random. Fifteen questionnaires was administered to randomly selected respondents and then analyzed using SPSS software for determining reliability. Data was analyzed using Descriptive Statistics (mean and standard deviation) and Multiple Regression Analysis which was used to draw inferences on the relationship between the study variables. The study findings indicated that nature, challenges, trainee characteristics and training characteristics were important in determining performance of Youth owned SMEs in Nakuru County. The correlation results indicate that the association between SME performance and nature, trainee characteristics and training characteristics of the programs was strong and positive and was statistically significant. However, Challenges were negatively associated with SME performance. Regression results also show a positive and statistically significant relationship between SME performance and nature, trainee characteristics and training characteristics of the entrepreneurial training programs of youth owned SMEs in Nakuru County. It was concluded that youth owned SMEs in Nakuru County had put in place functional entrepreneurial training programs and their nature was a determinant of performance. It can also be concluded that there were challenges associated with youth owned SMEs in Nakuru County and these had a negative effect on performance. It was recommended that the management of the SMEs should ensure that the program is accommodative with respect to ethical values and behavior. There should also be allocation of sufficient resources on the training programs as constrained resources are hindrance in planning for management training. Another study can be done on those other factors which were not captured by the model in this study to investigate whether the findings will hold true.