Entrepreneurial orientation and performance of small Scale farming businesses in Kisii county, Kenya

Abstract

In the Kenyan economy, entrepreneurial activities are considered as a significant way to address the prevalent high levels of poverty and unemployment. The Micro and Small Enterprises sector is regarded as the driving force to spur economic growth, innovation and job creation. Given that the economic system generally depends on farming, small-scale farming businesses are critical and need to be cultivated for the general growth and development. In this regard, most of the farmers who engage in small-scale farming businesses ought to be supported by the respective governments in information, farm inputs, marketing and product development. For the purpose of this study, the researcher sought to establish the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the performance of small-scale farming businesses focusing on risk taking, innovativeness and pro-activeness and their respective effect on performance of small-scale farming businesses in Kisii County Kenya. The study was conducted at Kisii County with a total population of 227, 840 small-scale farmers and a sample size of 400 respondents. The researcher used a cross-sectional research design while the sample size was picked using Krejcie and Morgan sampling table. The simple random sampling procedure was used to collect data from various sub-county respondents and both structured and unstructured questionnaires were administered. Once data was collected, it was entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Computer Package for data processing. Data analysis included descriptive statistics where the findings established that risk taking had a great influence on the performance of the small scale farming businesses in Kisii County. The study findings also depicted that innovativeness and Pro-activeness were critical for the performance of small scale farming businesses in Kisii County Kenya. However, the findings of this study indicated that the entrepreneurs from the target population lacked necessary knowledge, skills and accessibility to resources which has hindered the growth of their businesses regardless of enough experience in their respective areas of business. Further, the study recommended areas of further research study to be done on medium sized businesses and partnerships in Kisii County and pastoral regions. In addition to the recommendation, the government should create knowledge-based orientation for skilled and semiskilled businesses to improve creativity and sharing of technological resources with the objective of improving performance. Further studies were recommended to be done in different regions such as pastoral areas and other arable regions of the county in order to establish the validity of these findings.