Factors Influencing Social Entrepreneurship in Kariobangi, Kenya

A Research Project Report Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree in Master of Business Administration (MBA)The main objective of this study was to evaluate factors influencing social entrepreneurship in Kariobangi, Kenya. The study was guided by the following research objectives: the relationship between personal attitude and social entrepreneurial intention; the relationship between subjective norm and social entrepreneurial intention; the relationship between perceived behavioural control and social entrepreneurial intention and finally examine the extent to which entrepreneurial environmental factors affects entrepreneurial intention. Descriptive research design, correlation and regression analysis wereused. The study targeted 11 Community Based Organizations under the umbrella of Raslimali Enterprises Limited in Kariobangi, where fiftyleaders were identified to be the respondents. Questionnaires were employed and data collection and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to analyse the data. The findings from the study revealed that the relationship between personal attitude and social entrepreneurial intention depicted some difference in mean ranking, with the variance being minimal and all the items were negatively skewed. This is an indicator that the respondents had positive personal attitude towards business. And on the relationship between each of the entrepreneur’s intention and personal attitudes, most respondents cited that they were ready to do anything to become entrepreneurs which had correlation with the challenge of not having adequate resources to start the business, therefore making most of them live with uncertainty.Looking at the relationship between subjective norm and social entrepreneurial intention, the findings revealed that the respondents view on subjective norm were ranked based on mean ranked from the highest to the lowest with family approval of the decision to start a business taking lead, followed by colleagues and mates approval of the decision and lastly friends approval of the decision.And looking at the relationship between perceived behavioural control and social entrepreneurial intention. The items ranked in order of priority were on the control to create a new business, probability of succeeding, capacity to start a business, how easy it was to start and maintain a business, and ability to develop entrepreneurial project. And the last research objective examined the extent to which the entrepreneurial environment affects the social entrepreneurial intention.The ranking of the items under entrepreneurial intention was based on the mean and this included; being determined to create a business in the future, followed by having the business intention to start a business someday, having a very serious thought of starting a business, making every effort to start and run their own business. In conclusion, the entrepreneurial environmental factors have a major effect on the social entrepreneurial intention, which if addressed can help in the growth of social entrepreneurship in a manner that will help alleviate poverty among communities besides enhancing their ownership and sustainability. In future, further research should be carried out by scholars to determine how the social entrepreneurial intentions impacts on the lives of the beneficiaries in the informal settlements to determine ownership and sustainability