Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are valued as the engine of economic evolution in supporting sound development across countries. The disappointing issue is that most of these enterprises have shown high failures where very few of them go beyond one year. One of the reasons this could happen might be the failure to adopt the financial risk management practices that are delivered during the entrepreneurial training to SMEs. Therefore, this study has investigated the influence of financial risk management practices training on its adoption by small and medium enterprises in Nairobi County. The specific objectives were: to establish the influence that financial risk identification and analysis training has on its adoption by SME entrepreneurs in Nairobi County, to examine the influence that financial risk monitoring training has on its adoption by SME entrepreneurs in Nairobi County, and lastly, to determine the influence that financial risk mitigation training has on its adoption by SME entrepreneurs in Nairobi County. This study employs a descriptive correlational research design where the researcher illustrates the variable relationships without necessarily the causes. This study used a stratified random sampling method with a target population of 2,591 and a sample size of 393 entrepreneurs. Purposively, the entrepreneurs sampled must have participated in a nine-month entrepreneurial training from Hand in Hand Eastern Africa between January 2017 and December 2019 and based in Nairobi region. This study used a questionnaire as the primary data collection tool, comprising a Likert-type scale of questions. Data was collected from the primary sources, cleaned, and analyzed to draw conclusive observations for inference. The results indicate that there is a positive and significant association between the independent and dependent variables. The study found that entrepreneurship training influenced the adoption of identification and analysis, financial risk monitoring, and also financial risk mitigation of SMEs. The study concludes that entrepreneurship training influenced the adoption of financial risk management practices of SMEs.
The study recommends the need for the trainers to evaluate the adequacy of their entrepreneurial training about how SMEs can benefit from transferring financial risks to 3rd parties. This could involve partnering with insurance companies in their training for ease of adoption. In addition, the study recommends the need to spend more time handholding those members who are not able to adopt the financial risk management practices.