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The aim of the paper is to analyse female and male loan officers' (LOs) risk aversion as they assess different types of small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) loan applications.

The data were gathered from a sample of 75 Swedish LOs, using the repertory grid technique and related questions. The data were analysed statistically.

The findings demonstrate that female LOs focus more on collateral (used as a proxy for risk aversion) in their evaluations of first-time loan applications than male LOs. However, the findings also suggest that there are no significant differences between the two groups as far as risk aversion when they evaluate additional loan applications. The other variables controlled for (age, tenure, insight, education, and location) did not significantly affect the LOs' risk aversion.

The study might have benefited from the use of complementary data collection approaches. Access to actual assessment and decision-making procedures could have increased the understanding of female and male LOs' attitudes toward risk.

The findings suggest that by the use of female-male LO teams, banks may achieve more balanced assessments of SMEs' loan applications.

To the authors' knowledge, the literature has not explicitly addressed risk aversion among female and male LOs with respect to different types of bank loans. Moreover, the authors investigated risk aversion in the context of standardised assessments procedures used to reduce exposure to credit risk.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how female bank lenders are locked into a position of disadvantage in a UK bank. The work of Bourdieu is used to explore women's position of disadvantage and inequality. As Bourdieu helps us predict, the women are symbolically constructed as different, and face different problems to men. Women's social capital is not perceived as the same as men's.

The research method involved preliminary research interviews with seven key senior staff in the bank followed by focus group discussions with 35 male and female bank loan officers on bank premises within a nine-month period. Six focus groups were held – three with men and three with women in four British cities – London, Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh. All the interviews were tape-recorded and analysed. The participants were told that the discussion was completely confidential, and that we were interested in the role gender played in entrepreneurial and corporate life. Findings were verified by taking them back to a selection of those who had been involved in the focus groups.

The findings show how the power dynamics are played out within the immediate workplace environment and influenced by the wider macro systems of society. The women differed in their views as to whether gender mattered. Despite the evident inequities these women face, some wished to deny or resist being seen as unequal or wanted to acknowledge inequity. The paper explains how and why this might be the case.

The research is limited by its sample size to 35 bank loan officers.

The paper demonstrates some of the difficulties faced by those who wish to implement equality of opportunity in the face of women's denial of inequality.

The paper clearly illustrates the difficulties and challenges faced by female bank loan officers in banking.

This paper discusses the subjective experience of equality, inequality and exclusion among female bankers showing how they are not a homogenous group, as they say they experience equality/inequality differently. These women face ideological dilemmas that are not widely discussed in the research literature. It is very unlikely that as a divided, heterogeneous group who find themselves in a very small minority in this bank, that greater equality for them is likely to come about.

This paper aims to investigate whether loan officers' risk taking in credit decisions are associated with their personal financial risk preference and personality traits or solely with bank-contextual and loan-relevant factors.

An online survey administered in six large Swedish banks to 163 loan officers responsible for assessing credit risk and approval of loan applications. The loan officers rated their likelihood of approving fictitious loan applications from business companies.

The loan officers' credit risk taking is associated with bank-contextual factors, directly with perceived organizational credit risk norms and indirectly with self-confidence in assessing credit risks through attitude to credit risk taking. A direct association is also found with personal financial risk preference but not with personality traits.

Increased awareness of that loan officers' personal financial risk preference is associated with their credit risk taking in loan decisions but that the banks' risk policy has a stronger association. Banks' managements and boards should therefore assure that their credit risk policy is implemented, followed and being aligned with their performance incentives.

Increased awareness of that loan officers' credit risk taking is associated with personal financial risk preference but more strongly with the banks' risk policy that motivate banks' managements and boards to assure that their credit risk policy is implemented, followed and being aligned with their performance incentives.

The first study which directly compare the associations of loan officers' risk taking in credit approvals with personal risk preference and personality traits versus bank-contextual factors and loan-relevant information.

The study aims to discern the primary obstacles confronted by the implementing agencies in their efforts to foster financial inclusion through the “Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana” (PMMY).

To collect primary data, a semi-structured questionnaire was developed. Around 120 loan officers from the implementing agencies (Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs), Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), Small Finance Banks (SFBs), Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) and Micro- Finance Institutions (MFIs)) of Haryana were randomly selected to fulfill the objectives. To categorize the perceived problems into discrete factors, the “factor analysis” technique was employed. The scales were then regressed on factors linked to the demographic characteristics of the loan officers to validate the hypotheses.

The study highlighted the primary obstacles impeding the advancement of financial inclusion, which encompass a range of factors. These include challenges in management, infrastructure, politics, finance and technology. Furthermore, the study established the association of the explanatory variables, namely gender, age, educational qualification, location and experience of the officers, with the extracted constraints. Notably, the experience of loan officers emerged as the most influential variable contributing to the promotion of financial inclusion through the scheme.

The current body of literature lacks any empirical investigation focusing on the perspectives of the implementing agencies regarding the challenges they encounter in advancing FI. Given the significance of FI in India, where access to formal financial services remains a critical issue, this research adds value by addressing the gaps in understanding the problems encountered.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-06-2023-0462

This paper aims to examine gender differences in credit access and credit default.

Using panel data drawn from 917 valid credit borrowers covering the period 2012 to 2015 drawn from among 6,849 study subjects and a national household financial survey (n = 29,500) conducted in China, this study focuses on gender differences in small and micro entrepreneurs’ financial behavior, specifically with respect to credit access and credit default.

The study revealed the following: Women expressed having more barriers to obtaining a business loan than men; gender had a significant effect on women’ credit default; and women were less likely to default a loan than male loan borrowers did. An exploration of the reasons for credit access and default found that female loan applicants were more likely to display a lack of knowledge and confidence in loan application.

The study contributes to literature by using the Marxian concept of reification in explaining women and their financial behaviors in China.

The purpose of this paper is to question our faith in numbers. It asks how much credibility can numbers and quantification of data offer us as researchers?

The research asked the question “Does gender matter?” in the case of banks lending to male and female business owners. To test this the bank loan officers were given an identical fictional bank loan proposal from either Jack or Emma Jones. It was assumed that the more positive statements made, the more likely there would be a positive decision to lend to either Jack or Emma.

The main finding was that no link was found between the number of positive statements made and the final decision on whether or not to lend to either gender. While counting, we assume, injects precision into analysis, in this case it provided no support for the existence of a relationship between the numbers of positive statements and final decision on whether or not to lend. Some reasons are presented.

The paper features a small sample of 35 interviews. It would be interesting to see if this same finding is replicated in other studies of bank loan decision making using bank loan proposals and investigating the effect of gender on decisions.

This research builds upon the 1993 research of Fay and Williams.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether negative incentives in the pay-for-performance mechanism would trigger loan officers to strategically reject potentially good loans. If so, what is the feasible solution to alleviate the problem.

A framed field experiment was conducted to test loan decision behaviors using loan officers from Rural Credit Cooperatives in Shandong, China. A 2 by 2 between-subject design was adopted to generate variation in incentives and prior information about credit risks.

Results showed that loan officers did ration credit by rejecting more loans when facing risks of personal income loss. However, providing risk information about the application pool boosted the approval rate and offset the behavioral responses by a roughly same magnitude.

Findings in this study suggest that certain institutional settings can result in credit rationing via strategic loan misclassification. Further, information sometimes generates similar effects as those costly incentives or mechanisms that are not implementable in practice.

This study adopted an innovative monetized experimental design that allows researchers to examine the (otherwise unobservable) trade-offs between Type I and Type II error in loan misclassification as incentives change. In addition, an anchoring prior information treatment is used to solicit the relative power of almost costless information and costly monetary incentives, and to point out a potentially feasible solution.

The purpose of this study was to explore strategies used by successful female entrepreneurs to manage the challenges of running a small apparel business.

A qualitative research design was used. Primary and secondary data were collected on small business in three countries: Russia, South Africa and Thailand. In-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 11 female small apparel business owners. Businesses ranged from tailoring and custom clothing shops, to small-scale design and production, as well as small apparel retail stores.

Three emergent themes highlight the similarities and differences that surfaced across the participants’ narratives. Key issues within the thematic areas point to the need for these women to be creative in finding resources to start and grow their small apparel businesses, and to manage the competition that they face within this industry.

It is difficult to generalize the findings of this study beyond the sample. Implications of the findings for understanding the needs of female apparel entrepreneurs and small business owners are considered.

Despite the significance of women to the apparel industry as well as small business ownership, thus far, the role of women as apparel entrepreneurs and small business owners has been under-examined in the literature. This study offers insight into what it is like for women seeking to succeed as apparel entrepreneurs and small business owners.

To present an analytical framework for conducting critical dialogic accounting and accountability-based participatory action research to further democratisation, social change and empowering marginalised groups, and to reflect on its application in a Bangladeshi nongovernmental organisation's microfinance program.

The framework, synthesising prior CDAA theorising and agonistic-inspired action research, is described, followed by a discussion of the methodological challenges when applying this during a ten-year, ongoing intervention seeking greater voice for poor, female borrowers.

Six methodological issues emerged: investigating contested issues rather than organisation-centric research; identifying and engaging divergent discourses; engaging marginalised groups, activists and/or dominant powerholders; addressing power and power relations; building alliances for change; and evaluating and disseminating results. The authors discuss these issues and how the participatory action research methods and analytical tools used evolved in response to emergent challenges, and key lessons learned in a study of microfinance and women's empowerment.

The paper addresses calls within and beyond accounting to develop critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship adopting an agonistic research methodology. It uses a novel critical dialogic accounting and accountability-based participatory action research approach. The reflexive examination of its application engaging NGOs, social activists, and poor women to challenge dominant discourses and practices, and build alliances for change, explores issues encountered. The paper concludes with reflective questions to aid researchers interested in undertaking similar studies in other contentious, power-laden areas concerning marginalised groups.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors which affect the financial access of the female-owned informal enterprises (FOIEs) in India. There has been a dearth of studies particularly targeting determinants of credit access by the women-owned informal enterprises. Demand side factors affecting financial access have been studied. The study of major factors affecting access to credit by unorganized women enterprises will be useful for policy making perspectives.

The study uses nationalized micro data set on the non-agricultural informal enterprises and probit estimation has been used to identify the factors which affect the probabilities of access to credit for the FOIEs.

The study highlights what facilitates and hinders the financial access for the FOIEs particularly in India. These enterprises in rural areas have better chances to avail credit from formal sources. Firm size, measured by policy-making size of employment and gross profit, involvement in diversified activities, maintenance of accounting record, has positive and significant impact on access to formal credit. The younger firms and the firms operating in the southern states of the country have higher probabilities to avail credit from institutional sources.

The study used the latest data set available on Indian informal enterprises, thus provides important insights about the status of financing of enterprises in India. This study highlights the regional variations and gender disparities that are prevalent in the Indian economy.