This study looked into how different cultural factors affect gender involvement in entrepreneurship in a multi-ethnic country, Kenya. A majority of previous similar studies have been done in Western, developed societies where national cultures have evolved and have dominated the literature on the 'cultural perspective' on gender and entrepreneurship. In the majority of sub-Saharan countries, ethnic cultures play a more dominant role in moulding the values and perceptions of its citizens than national cultures. The differential rate of gender involvement was compared among four Kenyan ethnic groups namely Luo, Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Kamba. A significant outcome of the study, is that there were neither significant gender differences on community perception of entrepreneurship nor the extent on the presence (or absence) of personality traits associated with entrepreneurship. From the study, it appears that for the communities studied, ethnic cultural influences play a larger role in women's propensities towards entrepreneurship and their view of their community perception towards the same, than does gender. This is pronounced even when men and women from the same communities are compared along the same dimensions.

Entrepreneurship has been identified as a crucial activity for economic growth and employment generation worldwide. However, this has not been effective in most developing countries, Kenya as an example, has a high rate of unemployment among the young graduates emerging from universities and tertiary institutions. One of the government challenges is transforming the mindset of students to venture into business rather than seeking employments. This study thus examined the relationship between cognitive factors, entrepreneurship education and how these variables influence self-employment intentions among Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Kenya. The study objectives were to determine the influence of cognitive factors and the moderating effect of entrepreneurship education on students’ self-employment intentions. The study adopted a survey research design. Self-administered questionnaire was developed and administered to 400 diploma engineering finalist sampled from 41 public Institutions spread in five geographical regions in the country using multistage and simple random sampling approach. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20. Pearson’s Coefficient Correlation was used to examine reliability of data. Factor analysis was conducted to investigate the internal structure among the set of variables. Multiple linear regressions analysis was used to examine the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable. The results of findings showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between cognitive factors and self-employment intention. The results also showed that entrepreneurship education enhances cognitive factors and thus strongly influence self-employment intentions.