Entrepreneurial Marketing Skills and Performance of Youth-Owned Micro and Small Enterprises in Nairobi Metropolitan Region

Youth owned micro and small enterprises contributes immensely to the performance of economy and an intervention to the high unemployment among the Kenya youth. The government has undertaken several measures such as upgrading of metropolitan market to support and nurture youth entrepreneurship in Kenya. Despite the various government policies, statistics show low performance among youth owned micro and small enterprises. Entrepreneurship skills have been documented to be a driver of firm performance. Thus, the purpose of the study was to determine the effect of entrepreneurial marketing skills on performance of youth-owned MSEs. The study adopted dual positivist and interpretivism approaches as research philosophy and exploratory research design. The sample size was 344 respondents selected from seven markets in the Nairobi metropolitan region. The study used questionnaires to collect the data. Data analysis involved the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings established that entrepreneurial marketing skills had a significant relationship with performance of youth-owned micro and small enterprises. The study concluded that more efforts should be placed in creating awareness on the instrumental role of entrepreneurial marketing as a facet for enhancing performance of youth enterprises. The study recommended that more awareness through entrepreneurship training and education is necessary to inform youth entrepreneurs on the immense power of entrepreneurial marketing skills in driving performance of youth MSEs. Keywords—entrepreneurial; marketing skills; youth-owned; micro and small enterprises DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/17-2-07 Publication date: February 28th 2025