THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAINING AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF GOVERNMENT-FUNDED YOUTH GROUP ENTERPRISES IN TAITA TAVETA COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

World over, entrepreneurship has been sold as a solution to unemployment. The group of the
population that seems most affected by dwindling job opportunities is the youth. Organisations,
both governmental and non-governmental have been seen to engage in initiatives that are aimed
at building and enhancing the capacities of youth to start and run their enterprises. A case in
point is the establishment of youth funds by governments that provide money capital and
entrepreneurial training to youth. This approach has not had the impact expected. It is in light of
this, that this study sought to establish the relationship between entrepreneurship training and
organizational performance of government-funded youth enterprise groups in Kenya. It
specifically targeted those that were registered with the Youth Enterprise Development
Enterprise Fund in Taita Taveta County. A cross-sectional survey was conducted, where
questionnaires were personally administered to 97 groups out of a sample of 156. Technical,
business management, and personal entrepreneurial skills were used to measure training in
entrepreneurship while both financial and non-financial measures were employed to indicate
performance. Regression analyses were performed on the data. It was established that there is a
significant relationship between entrepreneurship training and organizational performance. The
results indicated that 100% increase in entrepreneurship training brings about 32.3 percent
increase in organizational performance. These findings indicate that training in
entrepreneurship is key to the success of entrepreneurial ventures. It is recommended that
organisations in the space of financially empowering youth to venture into businesses should
consider training them before disbursements of the funds and continuous after the capital is
provided.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship training, organisational performance, government-funded youth
enterprises