Corporate Governance Practices And Financial Performance On Deposit-Taking Savings And Credit Co-Operatives In Nairobi City County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

The motivation behind the study was to establish how Nairobi City County’s deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperatives financial performance relate with corporate governance practices. Nairobi City County has witnessed immense growth in activities of Savings and Credit Cooperatives in the recent past, exhibiting upward patterns in key growth parameters like deposits, assets and loans. The research project aimed at establishing how the board size, board’s gender diversity, board members education level, ethnic diversity of the board, Chief Executive Officer duality, transparency and accountability impact on the Nairobi City County’s deposit-taking Savings and Credit Cooperatives financial performance. Descriptive research design was used in the study. Financial performance of deposit-taking Savings and Credit Co-operatives in Nairobi City County was explored as Return on Assets, this being the dependent variable. The predictor variables used in this study are size of the board, gender mix of the board, education level of board members, board’s ethnic mix, Chief Executive Officer Duality and transparency and accountability. The population of interest was all 37 deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperatives of Nairobi City County between the periods of 2012 to 2016. These deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperatives have witnessed a tremendous financial growth for the period. The study used primary data from a developed questionnaire and secondary source data was collected from the Saving and Credit Cooperatives financial reports filed with Sacco Society Regulatory Authority. The data was analyzed by use of SPSS-22 statistical analysis software. Correlation and Regression analysis were carried out. Board size revealed a strong negative correlation with financial performance of Savings and Credit Cooperatives with a value of -0.521. Board’s gender mix, board members education level, ethnic mix of the board and transparency and accountability all positively correlated with Savings and Credit Cooperatives financial performance at r = 0.154, 0.220, 0.131, 0.144 respectively. All the Savings and Credit Cooperatives recorded no Chief Executive Officer Duality situation hence the variable was shelved. The coefficient of determination R square was 0.319 which implied that independent variables explained 31.9% of the variability of the dependent variable which is return on assets. The study findings indicated that corporate governance practices in deed influenced the financial performance of the deposit-taking SACCOs in Nairobi City County and recommended a more intense application and a deeper entrenchment of the practices in the culture of the Savings and Credit Cooperatives