Factors Influencing Entrepreneurial Motivation of Women Entrepreneurs in Kenya: A Survey of Selected Microfinance Institutions in Nairobi

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a crucial activity for economic growth and employment generation globally. In Kenya, the majority of business owners are women. However, entrepreneurship is still regarded as manly work, and women have been made invisible. One of the government challenges is ensuring adequate support to women entrepreneurs to ensure the sustainability of their enterprises and improved contribution to the economy. This research thus endeavored to identify the factors influencing the motivation of women entrepreneurs in Kenya by investigating the economic, psychological and social motives that lead women to begin and run enterprises. They included the need to increase wealth, need for autonomy, need to achieve, and as well as motivation as a result of the acquisition of work experience and work skills. The population of interest in this study included women who have businesses and were group-based clientele of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Nairobi. The study focused on three major MFIs, that is, KWFT, SMEP and SISDO, purposively sampled based on their possession of attributes of interest to the study. The population sample was selected by means of the stratified random sampling method using the client membership lists derived from each of the MFIs’ group clientele. The sample size of 68, constituted 1.23% of the study population study population of women entrepreneurs from the three MFIs. Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire and the data collected from the analysed, summarized, and interpreted accordingly with the aid of descriptive statistical techniques such as simple percentages. For data analysis, descriptive and statistical analysis techniques were used and were derived from the SPSS software. A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the strength of a motivation item. In addition, a regression model was used to analyze the relationship between the various motivational items (independent variables) and motivation among women entrepreneurs (dependent variable). The analysis indicates that important motivations among the women venturing into entrepreneurship include to increase income, ownership of land, to be self-reliant, to be free from influence, to have full control, to acquire satisfaction from the job, to solve problems, to make decisions for myself, to maximize my potential; to innovate in the industry and to build and expand networks. It can therefore be stated that women entrepreneurs have been motivated into entrepreneurship to a great extent by aspects regarding personal wealth, need for autonomy as well as the need to achieve. The levels of work experience and skills held by the woman can be said to influence the decision to start a business but only to a moderate extent. The regression results further indicated that the need to achieve exhibits the strongest and positive influence on women entrepreneurship and the key drivers are the need to solve problems independently, the need to be personally responsible over own actions, the attraction towards the unknown and, the need to make own decisions. The study concluded that that women are intrinsically driven to entrepreneurial pursuits to meet their economic needs, need to be free from influence and to obtain a sense of accomplishment. The study recommended that a deeper understanding of what women term as wealth will help MFIs develop adequate products or engage in partnerships and with stakeholders that may help meet women’s economic motivations better.