Household Skill Utilization, Rural-Electrification and Growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

According to the Government of Kenya (2004), the Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) sector generated over 90% (or roughly 500,000) of all new jobs created outside of agriculture in 2003, accounting for 30% of the country's GDP. The majority of Kenyans still live in rural areas, which also serve as the centre for micro and small businesses. In order to take advantage of this chance, Kenya has created a national policy through rural electrification programmes that aims to strengthen the capacities of micro and small businesses (Abdullah & Markandyab, 2012). The objective of this research study was to establish the effects of household skills utilization due to rural electrification on the growth of small and medium enterprises in the coastal region of Kenya. The study area was the coastal region. This study adopted an exploratory research design. The target population for this study was small and medium enterprises (SMEs) registered in Kenya. Multi-stage sampling, systematic and simple random sampling techniques were applied, and the 95.5% response rate was 95.5%. This study found that there was an extent of revenue level on growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the coastal region of Kenya. Further, the study found that there is a strong positive correlation coefficient of 90.4% (0.904), which is statistically significant (p<0.05), meaning that for every one unit of household skills utilization applied on SME's economic environment, there is a significant effect of household skills utilization due to electrification on the growth of small and medium enterprises in coastal region of Kenya. This also implies that household skills utilization is positively affecting the growth of small and medium enterprises in the coastal region of Kenya. The study recommends that SME stakeholders institute their economic operationalization more on household skill utilization since knowledge and skills acquired through electronic media are necessary for business record keeping.