DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2019.v06i03.010

Pages: 245-251

Micro-entrepreneurs are viewed as instruments for driving economic growth. Despite their importance, they have continued to operate under resource constrained conditions. This situation has led micro-entrepreneurs to face frequent failures, inability to scale up and 90% of this group remains survival-focused. Research on failure attributions indicates that micro-entrepreneurs attribute positive outcomes to internal factors and negative outcomes to external factors. Internal and external failure attributions, though having effect on growth of micro-entrepreneurs have not been tested on growth intentions of resource limited micro-entrepreneurs. The overall objective of this study was to examine the effect of internal and external failure attributions on growth orientation of survival-focused micro-entrepreneurs in the slums of Nairobi. The population comprised of 1612 survival-focused micro-entrepreneurs operating in the slums of Nairobi. Quantitative questionnaires with (N=138) were collected. Reliability of questionnaires was tested on pilot data targeting eight respondents. Content validity of questionnaires was achieved through literature reviews and Factor analysis was used to access construct validity. Principal axis factoring found 5 factors each for both internal and external failure attributions with Cronbach alpha above the required 0.70. Stepwise model path established that external failure attributions uncontrollable external events, low financial independence and internal failure attributions intentional events were fit in explaining variability in micro-entrepreneurs’ growth orientation. The model explained 35.2 % of the variation in growth orientation. Therefore, it is important to take into account that internal and external failure attributions plays significant role on the growth orientation of survival-focused micro-entrepreneurs.