Moderating Effect of Entrepreneurship Education on the Relationship between Social Dimensions and Business Growth of Small and Medium Manufacturing Firms in Kenya

Abstract

Small and Medium enterprises today are realizing that social factors have a lot of bearing to their business performance in terms of pushing sales figures, profit margins and business growth. Entrepreneurs who embrace social dimensions in their business endeavours to quickly build a competitive edge against their competitors by equipping them with necessary skills and knowledge to effectively identify and utilise the opportunities in their areas of operations. However, manufacturing enterprises have stagnated in growth for the last two decades and some facing inordinate closure. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible association between social dimensions and the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study focused on manufacturing sector of SMEs in Nairobi County as indicated by role models, social capital and demographics factors and moderated by entrepreneurial education.  The research used descriptive survey design. The target population for the study involved all the 600 registered manufacturing SMEs in Nairobi County. A sample of 160 SMEs was selected. The SMEs were grouped into six strata because they were not homogeneous. Simple random sampling was used to select the respondents from each stratum. Purposive sampling was used to pick on either the production manager or the customer care manager for each of the stratum. The study employed a self-administered questionnaire to collect primary data from the respondents. Data was analysed using SPSS version 20. Based on the findings, it was concluded that social dimensions were found to have significant effect on business growth among SMEs in Nairobi County. Entrepreneurship education as a moderating variable enhanced the growth of SMEs.