Small and medium enterprise business owners play an important role in the Kenyan economy as they account for approximately 78 percent of total employment and 57 percent of the new jobs created. Despite their significant contribution, SME business owners face enormous challenges as such as access to credit, which affects their businesses. This study adopted a qualitative research paradigm with a multiple case study design to explore the strategies Kenyan SME business owners used to access credit to improve the profitability and growth of their businesses. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data from a sample of four SME owners of businesses located in Kakamega Town, Kenya, who have had access to credit. Company documents were used as supplementary data. All interpretations from the data were subjected to member checking to ensure the reliability of the findings. The research findings revealed that SME business owners face challenges in accessing credit to sustain their businesses because of the higher collateral requirements demanded by banks as a condition for lending. The study recommended that SME owners use their education and professional background, information access and group lending strategies to access credit to improve the profitability and growth of their businesses.

Risk management practices are currently a subject of interest and a novel impression beneath research and application by diverse organizations. Nevertheless, there seems much to be debated on this subject in terms of a general strategic risk management practices statement. There is uncertainty like, when there should be a declaration for each principal risk category the organization experiences or should exist a general risk management practices for the organization. A risk management practice is about achieving corporate goals. For many financial institutions (FIs), dual goals exist such as the social and economic perspectives. This study sought to analyze the effect of strategic risk management practices on corporate investment of selected financial institutions in Rwanda. The study aimed at establishing the effect of operational risk management practices, market risk management practices, compliance risk management practices and governance risk management practices on corporate investment in selected commercial banks in Rwanda. The study adopted descriptive research design. The study targeted 95 managers from finance, internal audit, risk compliance and operations departments. The sample size was 77 respondents. The research was conducted using primary and secondary data, which includes survey forms (questionnaires), interviews as well as reports of the targeted institutions. Information for the research were gathered utilizing organized surveys forms that were distributed to the targeted respondents. Narrative information obtained from interviews and open-ended questions in the questionnaire were analyzed using qualitative approaches. Validity and reliability of the instruments were tested using the Cronbach Alpha test retest methods. With the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science version 21.0, both descriptive statistics such as the means, modes, standard deviation, variances and inferential statistics were analyzed. The research revealed that management of operational risk has a constructive effect financial outcomes performance of financial institutions in Rwanda. The study found that there is a correlation between both operational risk management and market risk management and performance of the financial institutions. The research findings revealed that operational risk management (r=0.096, p<0.01), market risk management (r=0.506, p<0.01) and compliance risk (r=0.612, p<0.01) on corporate investments.