Environmental Factors Influencing the Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Machakos County :

Abstract

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important economic role and are regarded as engines of growth and development in many countries. This study sought to investigate on the factors that influence the performance of SMEs so as to determine why businesses (SMEs) fail or succeed .The study was guided by the objectives related to technology adoption, locational issues, entrepreneurial competence, and how legal and regulatory framework influence the performance of SMEs in Machakos County. The study used descriptive survey to examine the factors influencing the performance of SMEs in Machakos County. Data was gathered from owners or managers of hardware’s in Machakos Sub County. Stratified random sampling was adopted to select 34 SMEs from a target population of 63 SMEs. The study employed the use of questionnaire and interviews to collect primary data. All the questions were edited and analyzed through the use of statistical package for social sciences version 20.0 (SPSS) computer software to do analysis of variance (ANOVA) and to get the beta coefficient for the independent variables and F test results showed there was a statistical relationship between the predictor variables and the dependent variable. Correlation analysis was conducted at 95% significance level 2-tailed to establish the correlation. The study concludes that location was the most important independent variable as it read to 0.883 increases in scores of performance and there was a positive and significant relationship between all the independent variables and the dependent variable. The study recommends another study to be done in other counties and findings to be compared to those of Machakos County.