Influence of Budgeting Skills on the Growth of Women-Owned Enterprises in Buuri East Sub-County, Meru County, Kenya
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70619/vol6iss6pp1-14-872Keywords:
Budgeting skills, financial management competence, women-owned enterprises, enterprise growth, financial planning, Kenya.Abstract
Women-owned enterprises continue to contribute significantly to employment creation, household income generation, poverty reduction, and economic development. Despite this contribution, many women-owned enterprises experience slow business growth due to inadequate financial management competencies, particularly budgeting skills, which limit effective financial planning, resource allocation, expenditure control, and strategic decision-making. Budgeting has increasingly been recognized as an important managerial competency because it enables entrepreneurs to anticipate financial requirements, prioritize expenditure, allocate scarce resources efficiently, and monitor business performance. This study examined the effect of budgeting skills on the growth of women-owned enterprises in Buuri East Sub-County, Meru County, Kenya. The study was anchored on Agency Theory and adopted a positivist research philosophy, quantitative research approach, and descriptive research design. The target population comprised 460 registered women-owned enterprises, from which a sample of 214 respondents was selected through stratified random sampling. Data were collected using structured questionnaires that were subjected to validity and reliability assessment before the main survey. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Product Moment Correlation, and simple linear regression analysis. The study attained a response rate of 74.8%. The findings established that budgeting skills exhibited a positive and statistically significant relationship with the growth of women-owned enterprises. Regression analysis further demonstrated that budgeting skills significantly predicted enterprise growth, leading to the rejection of the null hypothesis. The study concluded that effective budgeting strengthens financial discipline, improves resource allocation, enhances expenditure control, and supports sustainable enterprise growth. The study recommends strengthening financial literacy programmes, entrepreneurship development initiatives, and enterprise support interventions that emphasize practical budgeting competencies among women entrepreneurs to improve business sustainability and competitiveness.
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