دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی فرهنگ، سواد مالی و عملکرد SME در غنا - تیلور و فرانسیس 2017

Abstract

This study extends the literature on financial literacy and cultural (Catholicism or Protestantism) beliefs to SME performance in a developing economy setting. Two basic questions motivated the study: 1) does culture influence financial literacy; and 2) does culture mediate the relationship between financial literacy and firm performance in Ghana? The results, from 300 randomly sampled SME-Owners and based on Ordinary Least Squares and Logit regressions, suggest that cultural values militate against financial knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, Protestant beliefs strengthen the probability that SMEs would take advantage of growth opportunities due to financial literacy. Thus, the study concludes that the relationship between financial literacy and SME growth is cultural-context dependent. The study recommends that 1) religious bodies should inculcate financial education in their teachings; 2) financial literacy training programmes for SME-Owners should be tailored to meet their needs; and 3) cultural beliefs of SME-Owners should be of prime consideration in designing financial literacy programmes.

5.0 Conclusion

The literature on financial literacy and culture are both at their developing stages in developing economies but the interesting nature of it has attracted a lot of interest in recent times. The dichotomy in Catholic and Protestant beliefs has been associated with; investment behavior of investors, capital structure of firms, propensity to take risk, innovation and gambling attitude, development of financial markets and shareholders’ or creditors’ rights protection. Based on the premise that Protestants beliefs accommodate wealth seeking attitude more than that of Catholics, the study argued that Protestants are more likely to pursue firm growth and any other resource acquisition (financial knowledge) that would enable them to acquire wealth more than Catholics. Consequently, based on the contagion-effect and resource-based view, the study pursued the basic objective of assessing the role of culture in explaining financial literacy and influencing the relationship between financial literacy and SME growth after controlling for firm age, gender and  investment. Based on a sample of 300 SMEs and using OLS and Logit models, the study revealed some interesting findings in support of the resource-based view and contagion effect.