Abstract:
The Government of Kenya since independence has made several attempts to spur
economic development through micro credit initiatives. However, statistics reveal that
financial performance of these initiatives have been a disappointment and they were
described as failed due to high default rates. This suggests that measuring the
influence of implementation practices on the financial performance of these funded
projects has not been established in Kenya. It was therefore necessary to carry out an
investigation from a project implementation process perspective on the women
projects funded by the Women Enterprise Fund (WEF). The main objective of this
study was to assess the relationship between project implementation practices and
financial performance of WEF funded projects in Nakuru Sub-County, Kenya. The
specific objectives were to: Determine the relationship between project scheduling
and project financial performance, to establish the relationship between project scope
management, to assess the relationship between project cost management, to examine
the relationship between quality management and project financial performance. To
facilitate drawing of inferences, the null hypotheses were set to demonstrate that there
is no significant statistical relationship between the project implementation practices
and financial performance of WEF funded projects in Nakuru Sub-County, Kenya.
The research utilized competence and implementation theories. The study was carried
based on survey research design. Multi-stage and Simple Random sampling
techniques were applied to select a sample size of 258 respondents from the target
population of 553 women groups. To collect data, the study utilized a structured
questionnaire which was administered to a randomly selected target respondents from
each sampled group. The responses were analyzed using descriptive and inferential
statistics and presented in tables and graphs. Hypotheses testing revealed statistically
significant influence of project implementation practices on project financial
performance as the fitted research model predicted at ρ<.000 with χ 2 of 67.03 and R 2
of 59.9% that time schedule supervision, scope, cost control and project quality
management influenced project financial performance. There was a positive
significant effect of project schedule (β=0.424; p=.012), project scope (β = 0.623;
p=.009), project quality (β= 0.114; p=.048) and project cost (β =0.124; p=.042) on
project financial performance of the women projects. The study found that all four
variables significantly influence the financial performance of Women Enterprise
funded projects in Nakuru Sub-County. The new knowledge that emerged from this
study is the women project owners’ perception on the implementation practices’
influence on financially performing projects. The study recommends that women
project owners funded by Women Enterprise in Nakuru Sub-County should improve
their knowledge and competence levels on established project implementation
practices. Lastly, the study recommends that Women Enterprise should give the
required technical supervision specific to individual projects so as to ensure the
implementation processes succeed