Implementation practices and project financial performance of women enterprise funded projects in Nakuru Sub County, Kenya

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