In the recent years there has been an influx of women venturing in the field of entrepreneurship in developing countries. This is attributed to advocacy on women empowerment programs and policies. Women owned small micro enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to record poor performances compared to their male counterparts. The purpose of this study was set to investigate selected factors perceived to influence the performance of women-owned small micro enterprises in Kenya. The factors studied included credit and dividends accessed from table banking groups, entrepreneur's experience, education levels of women entrepreneurs and income of women entrepreneurs. The study adopted cross-sectional survey design and a sample of 225 women entrepreneurs who participate in Village Saving and Credit Associations from Nakuru Town Kenya was used. The study found that all the women entrepreneurs had attained formal education with majority 43.6% having attained secondary education. Results also revealed that Ordinal logit regression model (OLR) had Pseudo R 2 of 60.2% and 49.3% which was above the statistical threshold of 20%. This implied that the selected factors income, credit and education level of the respondents influenced positive changes in the net profits and capital of Small Micro Enterprises (SMEs). Based on the study findings, Village Saving and Credit Associations were identified as one of the effective strategy that can enable more women entrepreneurs in the rural and urban areas to access affordable credit.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the inability to access affordable credit in Kenya which hinders many women entrepreneurs from either starting their own or expanding existing enterprises and capital base. The emergence of table banking groups attempts to fill the existing credit gap. Design/methodology/approach – A cross-sectional survey involving 225 randomly selected women entrepreneurs who participate in table banking groups within Nakuru Municipality was conducted. Data collection comprised a questionnaire whose reliability coefficient was 0.83 at 0.05 confidence level. Findings – Results indicated that a majority women entrepreneurs aged between 20 and 60 years with 71 per cent of them married. Further, 44 per cent had attained secondary-level education, while no illiterate entrepreneurs participated in the study. A positive increase in the number of employees, after members participated in table banking groups, was realized. Credit received from table banking influenced changes in the size of enterprises. Originality/value – The study shows that availability, affordability and accessibility of credit from table banking groups led to positive growth of women-owned enterprises.

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Fashion is very dynamic and way of life for humans in many consumer products, clothing included. In Kenya, the clothing industry is characterized by a dynamic environment and intense competition caused mainly by enlarged globalization, trade liberalization and importation of second-hand (mitumba) clothes. In this kind of environment, it is becoming increasingly difficult for an enterprise to maintain long-term success. Thus, the clothing enterprises are faced with challenges that demand them to offer higher value added products that meet the demands of the customers. As a solution, sound marketing strategies are critical to the survival and growth of micro-enterprises in the garment making sector. However, there is limited research that has looked at the enterprises from a marketing strategy perspective in terms of the type of marketing strategies that are embraced. This paper aims at highlighting the various marketing strategies. The study used ex-post facto research design targeting garment-making micro-enterprises with less than ten employees in Nakuru town. The main data collection instrument was a questionnaire that comprised closed and open-ended questions. Principal component analysis and Chi-square goodness-of-fit test (x 2 ) were used to determine the various marketing strategies and test the hypothesis that there was no variation in the marketing strategies implemented by garment-making micro-enterprises. Eight strategies were identified as being implemented by garment-making micro-enterprises. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that interactive marketing is the most implemented strategy while e-marketing is the least. However, further research is required to explore the impact of implementing the various marketing strategies on the growth of the enterprises.

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