Influence Of Enterprise Risk Management Practices On Financial Performance Of Commercial Maize Farming Ventures In Nakuru County, Kenya

The large scale maize farming is often faces diverse risks that undermine the financial viability of the farming venture. These risks include variability in prices occasioned by changes in market factors, risks of pests, climate change, theft, low yield and poor seed quality. These risks work to undermine the financial performance of the large scale maize farming. This study sought to examine the manner in which enterprise risk management practices impacts on the financial performance of commercial maize farming ventures in Nakuru County. Specifically, it examined the influence of enterprise risk identification practices, enterprise risk assessment practices, enterprise risk mitigation practice, and enterprise risk monitoring strategies aspects on the financial performance of commercial maize farming ventures in Nakuru County The theoretical review involved the Contingency Theory and Rational Choice Theory. This study utilized a descriptive research design. The population in this study was comprised of the farm accountants of the commercial maize farming ventures in Nakuru. This study adopted the census approach in which all the 95 members of the population were picked for participation in the study. The study made use of a questionnaire as the data collection instrument. The pilot study for this research was conducted in ten commercial maize farming ventures in Kitale to avoid contamination of data. The results of the pilot study showed that questions were clear and there were no formatting errors thus the questionnaire was adopted for the final study. The validity of the study was examined using the opinion of experts in enterprise risk management, as well as the opinion of the research supervisor. All the items scored an Item Level Content Validity Index (I-CVI) above 0.6 and Scale Level Content Validity Index (S-CVI) of more than 0.6 thus were considered valid at both item and scale level. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested during the pilot study and since all variables had a Cronbach alpha coefficient of above 0.7it was deemed reliable.