Entrepreneurial Networking Strategic Renewal and Performance of Youth-Owned Agro-Processing Small and Medium Enterprises in Selected Counties in Kenya

Abstract

The current business environment has become very dynamic, and this comes with threats and opportunities. Some of the factors that pose a challenge in this environment are new entrants, loss of competitive advantage, or rapid change in technology. In Kenya, SMEs suffer the same fate despite the critical role they play in the country. Most youth business startups fail in their third year, and very few enterprises have grown into large formal organizations. To survive in this dynamic environment, entrepreneurial networking becomes an important strategy that can be adopted by organizations. The objective of this study was thus trying to examine the influence of entrepreneurial networking strategic renewal on the performance of youth-owned SMEs. The specific objectives were membership in social networks, professional networks, business networks, and social networks and their influence on SMEs’ performance. The research design adopted was a descriptive cross-sectional survey. The study targeted youth-owned agro-processing SMEs registered by the Ministry of Trade and Industry from four County Governments namely, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Murang’a, and Nyandarua. The population that constituted the sampling frame was 287 youth-owned enterprises. Quantitative data were collected by the use of a structured questionnaire. The overall model study was R2 = 0.092, meaning that entrepreneurial networking strategies explained 9.2% of the variation in SMEs’ performance. The study coefficients indicated that holding all other factors constant, changing entrepreneurial networking strategies by one unit would result in a 0.324 change in the performance of youth-owned agro-processing SMEs. The value of t is 6.095, which was >2, and the p-value of 0.000 which implied that there was a statistically significant influence of entrepreneurial networking strategies on performance. The study concluded that entrepreneurship networking influences the performance of the youth-owned agro-processing SMEs in Kenya. This study recommends there is a need for SMEs to further establish networks outside their business cycle.