Thesis & Dissertations(Doctoral & Master)
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- ItemEntrepreneurial Motivation, Innovation and Resilience among Tours and Travel Enterprises in Kampala District(Makerere University Business School, 2023) Namugenyi, JamilaThe purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial motivation, innovation and resilience of tours and travel enterprises in Kampala. This study was a cross-sectional research design along with a quantitative research approach. A sample of 103 tours and travel enterprises was used. Data were obtained from business owners and top manager using questionnaire instrument. Validity of the questionnaire was tested using Content Validity Index, while reliability through pretesting and Cronbach Alpha coefficient. Data were analyzed using SPSS (v25) from which frequency tables, correlation and regression analyses were obtained to interpret results. This study found a positive and significant relationship between entrepreneurial motivation and business resilience. The study also established a positive and significant association between innovation and business resilience among tours and travel enterprises. Furthermore, the study found that entrepreneurial motivation and innovation positively and significantly predict business resilience. Moreover, this study ascertained that entrepreneurial motivation is the better predictor of business resilience among tours and travel enterprises in Kampala. The study concludes that motivations or drives which propel entrepreneurial activity are crucial in ensuring business resilience. It further concludes that innovation plays a crucial role in ensuring business resilience. The study recommends tours and travel enterprises engagement in innovation; and entrepreneurship education to stimulate business resilience. This research suggests future researchers to examine relationship between entrepreneurial motivation and business resilience focusing on motivations other than locus of control, risk taking propensity, and achievement oriented; comparative study examining entrepreneurial motivation, innovation and business resilience; and quantitative and qualitative approach examining entrepreneur motivation, innovation and business resilience among tours and travel enterprises in Uganda.
- ItemAdoption of E-Commerce among Small Scale Traders with Special Attention to Perceived Benefits and E-Commerce Skills.(2023) Nalwoga, AminaThis study was guided by three main objectives namely, to explore the possible contribution of Perceived benefits in explaining E-commerce adoption, to explore the possible contribution of E-commerce skills in explaining E-commerce adoption, and to explore the interaction effect between Perceived benefits, E-commerce skills and E-commerce adoption. A qualitative approach was employed to collect data from representatives of 14 souvenir shop traders in Kampala. The traders had to have been doing business in the same location for at least three years. Data collection was done through semi-structured interviews and was done inductively. The results indicated that both Perceived benefits and E-commerce skills were considered to be instrumental in E-commerce adoption. Other factors that emerged as important included, cost of E-commerce infrastructure, ease of use, testimonials and the level of security. With the above results, the study can be said to have identified some of the success factors that can explain the adoption of E-commerce among souvenir shop owners.
- ItemCognitive Flexibility, Entrepreneurial Innovativeness and Entrepreneurial Action.(2023) Nabirye, BarbaraEntrepreneurial actions are unearthed during times of turmoil to stimulate business performance. Such actions drive the innovation of new products and services in an organization that awaken demand and keep a firm operational (Furlotti et al., 2019). Since entrepreneurial actions are activities known to be practiced pre start up (innovation) and actual start up, they require the presence of individuals who are flexible in decision-making process in order to keep a firm in a stable state amidst continuous challenges (Giones et al., 2020; Caliskan & Lounsbury, 2022). Entrepreneurial actions enable SMEs to achieve their specified goals as they adapt to the changing environment and reduce the risks that may occur (Sproul et al., 2019). Enhancing entrepreneurial innovativeness and cognitive flexibility among individuals augment the rate of entrepreneurial actions that manifest in organizations (Yinus et al., 2019; Shepherd et al., 2020). In the existence of several scholarly works and the interest of improving entrepreneurial actions in firms, globally issues of SMEs failures are rampant especially during hard times. For example, according to Engidaw (2022), 43% of SMEs worldwide either closed temporarily or permanently because of the hard times as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. Gourinchas et al. (2021) in their study about the 17 European countries established that Italy had the highest failure rate of SMEs at 22.6%. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Report (2022) shows that SMEs in different regions and countries were hit differently by the pandemic. In Latin America a total of 2.6 million SMEs either permanently or temporarily closed, in America 1/5 of SMEs closed down temporarily and 1/3 closed permanently, in China 80% of SMEs closed down in 2020, Indonesia 49%, Thailand 71% Philippines 61%, UK 24% in 2020, India 47% and Bangladesh 50% of SMEs closed down. In Ethiopia, around 30% of the SMEs were hit severely and were forced to be closed down. In Uganda, more than 55% of SMEs were harshly hit and forced closed down (Kyeyune, 2022).
- ItemEntrepreneurial Ecosystem Support, Ecosystem Accessibility and Productivity of Incubatees in Kampala-Uganda.(2023) Arinda, AlbertThe purpose of the study was to establish the relationship between Ecosystem dimensions and productivity of incubatees in Kampala-Uganda. This study focused on Entrepreneurial ecosystem support and ecosystem accessibility as independent variables. On the other hand, productivity of incubatees was the dependent variable. The study used a cross sectional research design with a sample size of 123 incubatees from 6 business incubators from within Kampala. revealed a significant and positive relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystem support, Ecosystem accessibility and productivity of incubtees. Regression findings revealed that a combination of entrepreneurial ecosystem support and ecosystem accessibility predicated up to 41.9% (adjusted R square = 0.419) of the observed variance in productivity of incubatees. The findings revealed that entrepreneurial ecosystem support enables incubatees to ably identify and develop new markets with ease. Also, Ecosystem accessibility enables incubatees to adopt new technologies in its new product development initiatives. It was recommended that both internal and external incubation support services should be strengthened. Furthermore, the study recommends that the incubation centers should embark on changing the incubatees attitude and mindset towards networking, knowledge about networks and perceived benefits from the network.
- ItemEntrepreneurial Growth of Micro-Enterprises During the COVID-19 Lockdowns.(2023) Amongin, JulietThe purpose of the study was to examine entrepreneurial growth of micro enterprises during the Covid 19 Lockdowns with Soroti City as a case study. The researcher used a cross sectional survey alongside the mixed research design. This involved integrating the quantitative and qualitative analytical procedures in the study and conclusions were done after the data collection. Data was collected in the month of November 2022. The sample size was 346 micro enterprises and the selection was done by convenient sampling within Soroti City. Out of the 346 interviews, only 276 were considered, putting the response rate to 80%. Personal interviews using structured and semi-structured interview guide to collect quantitative data and qualitative data respectively. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS and while content analysis was done for qualitative data. The findings of the study revealed a significant and positive relationship between access to capital and entrepreneurial growth of Soroti City micro enterprise during the COVID-19 lockdowns (r=.536, P<.01). This implies that access to capital is very substantial to the growth of Soroti City micro enterprises. In addition, there was also a significant and positive relationship between market expansion and entrepreneurial growth of Soroti City micro enterprise during the COVID-19 lockdowns (R=.809, P<.01). Finally, the findings of the study equally revealed that, there was a significant and positive relationship between innovation and entrepreneurial growth of Soroti City micro enterprise during the COVID-19 lockdowns (R=.540, P<.01). The regression results showed that access to capital, market expansion and innovation were significant predictors of entrepreneurial growth during the lockdowns explaining 55.9% variance. From the study, it was recommended that to achieve entrepreneurial growth during the time of business shocks, micro enterprises should build business models to help them survive during business shocks and crises.