Search results

The paper examines gender differences in the performance and financing strategies of female and male entrepreneurs in the Republic of Serbia. The aim of this study is to explore the gender dimension – a much under-researched aspect of entrepreneurship in the Republic of Serbia – and to link the findings with those of other environments.

To explore gender-based differences in entrepreneurial activity, a random sample of 327 units was drawn from the Serbian Business Registers Agency’s Register of Companies. In total, 101 completed questionnaires were received. The chi-square test of association was used to assess the relationship between two categorical variables, while the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test was used to assess the statistical importance of the differences between groups of female and male entrepreneurs. The relationship between the performance and different sources of financing was assessed by multiple regression analysis.

The results confirm the existence of a gender gap in the net profit, employment growth rate, return on assets (ROA) and in use of various types of alternative financing sources. The evidence shows that those male entrepreneurs who use personal funds achieve lower levels of net profit and ROA compared to those who use internal business sources. Lower ROA is also achieved by those male entrepreneurs who use alternative sources of financing, relative to those who do not use these sources. Female entrepreneurs who applied for bank loans realized higher net profit value compared to those who did not apply for a loan. Moreover, female entrepreneurs who use some kind of state-supported funding achieve higher ROA than those who do not. Other gender differences found regarding the various aspects of the financing practices lacked statistical significance.

Although the generalizability of part of the findings is weakened due to the lack of statistical significance, most of the expected gender differences were found to exist at the sample level. This encourages further studies of similarities and differences between female and male entrepreneurs’ financing strategies and their impact on business performance. This is particularly important for the environments in which the gender aspect of entrepreneurial activity is under-researched.

This study aims to explore the impact of the containment measures during COVID-19 on individuals’ finances, financial resilience during such distress and identifying the most financially vulnerable among them. Tracing such impact during the pandemic has been challenging due to a lack of representative data. This paper addresses this gap in the present study.

A survey has been conducted using a structured questionnaire containing various items that portray the impact on income, spending, saving, investment, borrowing, insurance and retirement. The sample consists of 699 respondents and purposive and snowball sampling has been used for data collection. The results are presented and analyzed using infographics and frequency distributions. This study conducts an analysis of variance and Chi-square tests for significance.

This paper finds a fall in income and limited ability to cope with the current economic conditions. The survey highlights inadequate savings and insurance, weak retirement planning, outstanding loans and under-diversified investments inhibiting financial resilience even among the higher-income group. Particularly, lower-income strata, women and not much educated are most financially vulnerable. Further, no substantial financial benefits have been received from the government and people rely on their usual income sources.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that measures the pandemic’s impact on personal finances, especially in connection with a developing economy like India. Policy interventions are critical to the millions for whom financial literacy is required now more than ever.

Personal finance influences everything we buy and is a key driver of all economies. It has attracted significant research attention, mostly grounded in rational economics. However, it has not received adequate research attention in the consumer behavior literature. This study aims to address this gap by looking at some of the consumer-centric antecedents of short- and long-term personal financial planning, i.e. self-other orientation, cognitive style and time orientation.

A self-administered survey was used to collect data from full time employees. Hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analyses.

Both short- and long-term financial planning are positively associated with non-impulsive and analytical decision-making styles; whereas self and other orientation are only associated with short-term financial planning. Intuitive decision-making is not associated to either short- or long-term financial planning.

While analytical and long-term orientation are still important for personal finance, in the short run, consumers are also driven by self and other orientation.

The results are relevant for both products and services that have long-term and short-term financial implications for consumers.

This study explores financial planning decision-making from a consumer behavior perspective, and addresses a gap in consumer behavior literature.

The purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical explanation – financial numeracy – for consumer proficiency with financial services. With sufficient financial numeracy, consumers benefit fully from financial services and make competent choices in regard to financial management.

The article builds theory by combining consumer cognitive capacity and customer knowledge theories with findings from prior studies of consumer difficulties with financial services to introduce a comprehensive model of the antecedents and consequences of financial numeracy with testable propositions for many psychographic and cultural influences and moderators.

Financial numeracy demands that consumers possess sufficient financial information processing capacity and ability as well as sufficient prior knowledge of financial concepts. Although partly a function of individual cognitive ability, it can be enhanced through appropriate experience with financial instruments and familiarity through personal financial materials when consumers are motivated to process them. Financial numeracy directly affects financial management outcomes related to borrowing, saving, and taxes. It indirectly affects higher‐order financial consequences, such as a consumer's credit score, interest rates charged on subsequent loans, net worth, likelihood of bankruptcy, and size of inheritance.

Consumers around the world are increasingly experiencing difficulties with financial services. To advance research in financial services marketing beyond documenting troublesome financial behaviours of consumers, this conceptual model provides insights to help increase consumer proficiency in comprehending and managing financial services based on knowledge about consumer information processing, learning, memory and the cultural and psychographic influences on these internal processes.

This case was a real-life situation faced by the author. Names were changed, so students would not know that the author was the protagonist. The case had been developed over several years as a capstone to the capital budgeting section of an MBA finance course and an advanced undergraduate course.

Trey and Lauren Gallo were considering the purchase of a vacation condo that also generated rental income. The current owners were willing to sell at a lowball offer of $605,000 as the pandemic entered its 13th month. The Gallos felt they needed to act fast to get this deal. However, the risks were extraordinary, as the pandemic had reduced rental income by 50% and borders had just recently closed. The case provides all data needed to compute rental revenues, capital expenditure, operational expenditures and financing costs. Students are expected to compute the NPV and IRR of free cashflows. Students will compute and evaluate the cost of capital using the condo’s projected debt structure, a choice of several proxy betas and a project risk premium. The case also uses extensive sensitivity analysis. This case differs from corporate capital budgeting problems because it evaluates both levered and unlevered cashflows, and the cashflows include savings from personal use. The case has been successfully used in MBA finance courses and advanced undergraduate finance courses. The case can be used as a capstone case for capital budgeting or a comprehensive exam in undergraduate, MBA and executive programs. The case questions can also be spread throughout a course to cover the topics of financial statement forecasting, free cash flows, capital budgeting, cost of capital and sensitivity analysis.

Earlier versions of this case have been used in an advanced undergraduate corporate finance course and MBA finance courses. The case is generally used as a capstone to the material on capital budgeting. Students should have already covered material on financial statements, loan cashflows, levered and unlevered cashflows, CAPM, proxy betas, weighted average cost of capital, NPV and IRR. This case is also appropriate for courses in real estate finance and personal finance.

This study focuses on the factors affecting equality of access to UK government grant and loan initiatives and the identification of gender differences in the uptake of those initiatives.

A qualitative methodology was adopted as quantitative data is already available regarding the sources and levels of financing accessed. In total 32 interviews were conducted with 18 women and 14 men seeking business start‐up capital. A review of the advice and assistance offered by 31 business support agencies to potential and existing male and female business clients across the region also was undertaken.

The findings revealed that there is a discrepancy in the number of men and women business owners accessing grant and loans schemes. Women do not enter into business ownership with the same amount of capital as men, and women are far more likely to access loans and grants than traditional forms of financing.

This is a preliminary investigation which needs to be extended and the relationship between service providers and small business owners further explored to provide a greater understanding of the complexities that relationship has on accessing government grants/loans.

The grant and loan system is highly complex and fraught with difficulties, which appears to exclude women and more specifically those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, i.e. those they were designed to assist.

Previous research has focused on private sector sources of business finance. This study is the first to look specifically at government grant/loan schemes that are targeted at those business owners who experience discrimination accessing traditional forms of finance.

Using the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II dataset, we examine the role that household income plays in the emergence of consumer-oriented start-ups by individual (solo), family-based (family), and non-family based start-ups (team). In particular, we address the research question: Does household income impact firm emergence, and if so, is emergence impacted differently based on start-up configuration? Our results indicate that household income does have a significant impact on average firm emergence, as well as on emergence growth rates for solo and family firms, playing an especially significant role for family firms. Furthermore, we found that household income is not a significant predictor of start-up activity completion for teams. Results from our study reinforce the extant literature on the benefits of starting a firm with teams, and suggests that these enterprise types may provide a more stable platform on which to launch a start-up. Implications of these findings and opportunities for future research are offered.

South Africans, like many people worldwide, need to save more and spend less. The question arises why people do not save enough for their retirement and other financial needs. In this exploratory study, age, gender and the amount of pocket money that learners receive were evaluated to determine their impact on the level of learners’ financial literacy. The author concluded that of the three variables evaluated, only age has a significant effect on the level of learners’ financial literacy.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.