Networking and Access to Credit by Women Owned Small and Medium Enterprises
Abstract
Business networking has been gaining grounds as one of the factors that influence the success of business entities in the recent years. The aims of this study was therefore to establish the influence of networking on access to credit by women owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs). A descriptive research design guided by cross sectional survey was adopted for the study. The target population was drawn from women owned enterprises specifically owners of businesses in Nairobi County, Kenya. A sample of 370 was derived from the population. Data was collected from the respondents using structured questionnaires. Analysis of the data was done using SPSS version 24, both descriptive and inferential statistics (correlation analysis and multiple regressions) were used to establish hypothesized relationships between the variables. The results were presented in form of tables, graphs, charts, means, standard deviations, t and f statistics. The findings of the study revealed that networking statistically and significantly predicts the access to credit by SMEs owned by women (i.e., the regression model is a good fit of the data) and that networking significantly influence the access to credit by SMEs owned by women in Kenya.
Key words: Networking, access to credit and women owned SMEs
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