ENTREPRENEURIAL RESILIENCE IN KENYA'S SME SECTOR: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA
Abstract
Purpose of the study: This review sets out to bring together the scattered literature on entrepreneurial resilience among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya into a single, coherent account that spans the individual entrepreneur, the firm, and the wider entrepreneurship ecosystem, and to use that synthesis as the basis for a forward-looking research agenda.
Short introduction of problem statement: Kenyan SMEs sustain a large share of household income and national employment, yet most do not survive their first five years, and the shocks they must withstand, a global pandemic, recurrent drought and flood cycles, currency volatility, and chronic financing constraints, show no sign of becoming rarer. The scholarship capable of explaining why some enterprises absorb these shocks while others do not remain split across strategic management, information systems, development economics and psychology, with little cross-talk between the different literatures.
Method/methodology: The paper follows a systematic, desk-based narrative synthesis of academic and institutional literature published between roughly 2013 and 2026, retrieved from Emerald Insight, Wiley Online Library, Taylor & Francis Online, ScienceDirect, Cogent journals and relevant development-partner repositories, and coded inductively into five recurring themes.
Results of the study: Kenyan entrepreneurs and their enterprises draw on a fairly recognizable repertoire of resilience practices, psychological persistence, business diversification, digital-technology adoption, culturally embedded social capital, and both formal and informal finance to absorb disruption. This resilience is nonetheless persistently undercut by constrained access to finance and by uneven coordination among the institutions that are meant to support entrepreneurs, so that individual- and firm-level resilience cannot be fully understood apart from the ecosystem in which it is embedded.
Conclusion and policy recommendation: Strengthening resilience across Kenya's SME sector requires attention not only to entrepreneurs' psychological and managerial capacities but also to the financing infrastructure and institutional coordination that determine how much of a buffer entrepreneur can draw on when disruption strikes. The paper recommends harmonized credit-information systems, better-coordinated public financing instruments, and gender-responsive underwriting, together with a future research agenda centered on longitudinal, multi-level and shock-comparative study designs.
Keywords: entrepreneurial resilience, SME sector, Kenya, systematic literature review, dynamic capabilities, institutional coordination.
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