Factors influencing professional business start-ups among health workers in Tanzania: a case of Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salaam

This study investigated factors influencing business start-ups among professional health workers in Tanzania using Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salaam as a case study. The study examined the extent to which business knowledge, capital and entrepreneurial behavior of health workers influence their business start-ups. Data was collected using structural questionnaire and interview guide. A total of 70 randomly selected respondents participated in this study. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), through which mean, standard deviation correlation and regression analysis were computed.The analysis of the study shows that the business managerial skills and the entrepreneurial behavior had had more impacts towards professional based business start ups. Professional health workers need to have managerial skills in order to be able to start their own business. Regression analysis was used to describe the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. It was revealed that, the R value that represents the simple correlation was 07223 showing high degree of correlation and R2 value that indicates the total variation in the independent variable was 88%. These findings suggest that managerial skills and entrepreneurial behavior have a strong impact on the decision to engage in business start-up activity. The study also recommends that, the health workers should be trained on entrepreneur courses whereby the acquired knowledge will enable them to start their own business hence improve their source of income.