Abstract: Digital communication technologies are reshaping how youth-owned enterprises market products, engage customers and manage everyday business activities. Yet access to digital platforms does not necessarily translate into sustained or enterprise-wide use. This study examined the adoption and intensity of digital communication use among youth-owned socio-economic enterprises in Marani Sub-County, Kisii County, Kenya. A mixed-methods approach was employed with 335 youth-owned enterprises, combining survey data with qualitative accounts to explain patterns in digital use. Eight five-point Likert-scale indicators assessed daily use, integration into routine operations, customer communication, platform updating, perceived importance, marketing, customer support and feedback, and employee participation. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the survey data, while qualitative responses were thematically analysed and integrated with the quantitative findings. Overall, enterprises reported high adoption and routine use (M = 4.16, SD = 0.78). The highest-rated uses were marketing products and services (M = 4.37, SD = 0.65), customer communication (M = 4.34, SD = 0.69), and daily use (M = 4.28, SD = 0.76). However, platform updating (M = 3.95, SD = 0.88) and employee participation (M = 3.92, SD = 0.91) were comparatively weaker. Qualitative findings showed that WhatsApp and Facebook supported marketing, ordering, customer feedback, payment coordination and delivery communication, but use was often concentrated among enterprise owners. The findings suggest that digital adoption among youth-owned enterprises is substantial, but digital capability remains unevenly distributed within enterprises. Moving from owner-centred use towards shared organisational capability may therefore be critical for achieving more sustained and multifunctional digital transformation.

Abstract: This study looked at how women smallholder farmers’ involvement in the global value chain fosters innovation in vanilla production. The study concentrated on the importance of vanilla associations, the adoption of innovative vanilla production technology, and the obstacles preventing women producers from participating in global value chains. Additionally, the study uses a cross-sectional, quantitative research design, collecting data through a survey. Moreover, the multistage cluster sampling technique was used; focusing on women’s involvement in agricultural cooperatives and wards with notable vanilla output. Descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression were therefore used in the data analysis. The results showed that pollination technology (25.1%) and farm preparation technology were the most often adopted technologies (24.4%). These findings show that women who grow vanilla are primarily implementing useful farm-level innovations that directly raise crop quality and yield. With a standardized regression coefficient of β =.194, p =.005, the regression results further demonstrated that pollination had a positive and statistically significant impact on innovation. This implies that better pollination techniques are crucial to fostering innovation in the production of vanilla. The substantial effect of vanilla association, recorded (β = .248, p = .003), which provided additional support for the findings. This suggests that vanilla associations provide farmers with production knowledge, where pollination technology demonstrates a positive innovation spillover effect, showing that global value chain participation can enhance farmers’ innovation when supported by local institutional linkages. However, 33.9% of barriers to women vanilla growers’ participation in global value chains were due to lack of training.