IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v115y2020icp266-271.html

Financial support for micro and small enterprises: Economic benefit or social responsibility?

Author

Listed:
  • Xu, Bing
  • Costa-Climent, Ricardo
  • Wang, Yanyan
  • Xiao, Yuan

Abstract

Regarding the financial support provided to micro and small enterprises (MSEs), deciding whether to prioritize economic benefit or social responsibility is a crucial policy choice, especially in developing countries. This paper establishes a new research framework for density of enterprise output value and wages conditional on loans to balance economic benefit (sales revenue) and social responsibility (employee payroll). Using data on 9125 Chinese enterprises from January 2015 to December 2017, this paper shows that loans have a range effect on sales revenue and employee payroll, which ascends gradually to a plateau and eventually descends. Based on this finding, this paper proposes a reallocation scheme. With total loans unchanged, fixed sales revenue can increase employee payroll by 3.8%. Similarly, fixed employee payroll can increase sales revenue by 5.2%. This study not only provides empirical evidence for financially supporting MSEs, but also provides alternative decision support for policy design.

Suggested Citation

  • Xu, Bing & Costa-Climent, Ricardo & Wang, Yanyan & Xiao, Yuan, 2020. "Financial support for micro and small enterprises: Economic benefit or social responsibility?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 266-271.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:115:y:2020:i:c:p:266-271
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.01.071
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296320300837
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.01.071?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ma, Shuang & Wu, Xi & Gan, Li, 2019. "Credit accessibility, institutional deficiency and entrepreneurship in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 160-175.
    2. Sumei Luo & Yuxi Zhang & Guangyou Zhou, 2018. "Financial Structure and Financing Constraints: Evidence on Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, May.
    3. Omri, Anis, 2020. "Formal versus informal entrepreneurship in emerging economies: The roles of governance and the financial sector," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 277-290.
    4. Graafland, J.J. & Ven van de, B. & Stoffele, N., 2003. "Strategies and instruments for organising CSR by small and large businesses in the Netherlands," MPRA Paper 20754, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. John Donaldson & Irene Fafaliou, 2003. "Business ethics, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance: a review and summary critique," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1-2), pages 97-118, January -.
    6. Shen, Jianfu & Firth, Michael & Poon, Winnie P.H., 2016. "Credit Expansion, Corporate Finance and Overinvestment: Recent Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 16-27.
    7. Arena, Marika & Bengo, Irene & Calderini, Mario & Chiodo, Veronica, 2018. "Unlocking finance for social tech start-ups: Is there a new opportunity space?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 154-165.
    8. Eliza Sharma, 2019. "A review of corporate social responsibility in developed and developing nations," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(4), pages 712-720, July.
    9. Robert Cull & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Jonathan Morduch, 2018. "The Microfinance Business Model: Enduring Subsidy and Modest Profit," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(2), pages 221-244.
    10. Isabelle Agier & Ariane Szafarz, 2013. "Subjectivity in credit allocation to micro-entrepreneurs: evidence from Brazil," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 263-275, June.
    11. Nam, Chang Woo, 2016. "The Effects of Financial Support Policies on Corporate Decisions by SMEs," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 38(3), pages 79-106.
    12. Jooyoung Jeon & James W. Taylor, 2012. "Using Conditional Kernel Density Estimation for Wind Power Density Forecasting," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(497), pages 66-79, March.
    13. Dennis Yao Dzansi & Marius Pretorius, 2009. "The development and structural confirmation of an instrument for measuring the social responsibility of small and micro business in the African context," Social Responsibility Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 5(4), pages 450-463, October.
    14. Bhattarai, Charan Raj & Kwong, Caleb C.Y. & Tasavori, Misagh, 2019. "Market orientation, market disruptiveness capability and social enterprise performance: An empirical study from the United Kingdom," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 47-60.
    15. Dan van der Schans, 2015. "The British Business Bank's role in facilitating economic growth by addressing imperfections in SME finance markets," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1-2), pages 7-25, April.
    16. Huang, Zhehao & Liao, Gaoke & Li, Zhenghui, 2019. "Loaning scale and government subsidy for promoting green innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 148-156.
    17. Kim, Junwoo & Kim, Robert & Kim, Sangwan, 2020. "Does financial statement comparability mitigate delayed trading volume before earnings announcements?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 62-75.
    18. Adriano Z. Zambom & Ronaldo Dias, 2013. "A Review of Kernel Density Estimation with Applications to Econometrics," International Econometric Review (IER), Econometric Research Association, vol. 5(1), pages 20-42, April.
    19. Wen, Kuangyu & Wu, Ximing, 2017. "Smoothed kernel conditional density estimation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 112-116.
    20. Angeloantonio Russo & Antonio Tencati, 2009. "Formal vs. Informal CSR Strategies: Evidence from Italian Micro, Small, Medium-sized, and Large Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 339-353, April.
    21. Shuanglian Chen & Zhehao Huang & Benjamin M. Drakeford & Pierre Failler, 2019. "Lending Interest Rate, Loaning Scale, and Government Subsidy Scale in Green Innovation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-22, November.
    22. Khawaja Fawad Latif & Aymen Sajjad, 2018. "Measuring corporate social responsibility: A critical review of survey instruments," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(6), pages 1174-1197, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fuyou Li & Hao Di, 2021. "Analysis of the Financing Structure of China’s Listed New Energy Companies under the Goal of Peak CO 2 Emissions and Carbon Neutrality," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-15, September.
    2. Fabiane Tubino Garcia & Carla Schwengber ten Caten & Elaine Aparecida Regiani de Campos & Aline Marian Callegaro & Diego Augusto de Jesus Pacheco, 2022. "Mortality Risk Factors in Micro and Small Businesses: Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-37, February.
    3. Die Hu & Lu Qiu & Maoyan She & Yu Wang, 2021. "Sustaining the sustainable development: How do firms turn government green subsidies into financial performance through green innovation?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 2271-2292, July.
    4. Valentini, Chiara & Munnukka, Juha & Zhao, Hui, 2024. "Stakeholder satisfaction with corporate conflict engagement actions: Exploring the effects of goodwill, trust, and value alignment," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 67(6), pages 797-813.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mercedes Rubio‐Andrés & María del Mar Ramos‐González & Miguel Ángel Sastre‐Castillo & Ignacio Danvila‐del‐Valle, 2020. "Exploring sustainability, good governance, and social responsibility in small and medium enterprises," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 852-869, March.
    2. Zhu, Zhaohui & Tan, Yafei, 2022. "Can green industrial policy promote green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises? Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 59-75.
    3. Yang, Tongbin & Zhou, Bo, 2025. "Does transition finance policies persistently fuel green innovation in brown firms? Investigating the roles of ESG rating and bank connection," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Zou, Ganna & Zhang, Shengbo & Gan, Xingqiong & Cheng, Hua, 2025. "How government green procurement incentivises corporate green innovation? Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1605-1626.
    5. Kun Luo & Ke Zhang, 2024. "Executive's environmental background and sustainable development: Evidence from substantial green innovation," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 4812-4828, October.
    6. Paolo Maccarrone & Anna Maria Contri, 2021. "Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility into Corporate Strategy: The Role of Formal Tools," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-20, November.
    7. Xi, Xun & Xi, Baoxing & Miao, Chenglin & Yu, Rongjian & Xie, Jie & Xiang, Rong & Hu, Feng, 2022. "Factors influencing technological innovation efficiency in the Chinese video game industry: Applying the meta-frontier approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    8. James Ming Chen & Mira Zovko & Nika Šimurina & Vatroslav Zovko, 2021. "Fear in a Handful of Dust: The Epidemiological, Environmental, and Economic Drivers of Death by PM 2.5 Pollution," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-59, August.
    9. Shao, Yanmin & Chen, Zhongfei, 2022. "Can government subsidies promote the green technology innovation transformation? Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 716-727.
    10. Angélique Catharina Elford & Claus-Heinrich Daub, 2019. "Solutions for SMEs Challenged by CSR: A Multiple Cases Approach in the Food Industry within the DACH-Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-31, August.
    11. Maria Jesus Bonilla‐Priego & Juan‐José Nájera‐Sánchez & Xavier Font, 2022. "Beyond ethics: The transformational power of overlapping motivations in implementing strategic sustainability actions," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 685-697, March.
    12. Qi, Xiulin & Wu, Zhifang & Xu, Jinqing & Shan, Biaoan, 2023. "Environmental justice and green innovation: A quasi-natural experiment based on the establishment of environmental courts in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    13. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Wang, Chang-song, 2022. "Financial development, technological innovation and energy security: Evidence from Chinese provincial experience," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    14. He, Feng & Yan, Yulin & Hao, Jing & Wu, Ji (George), 2022. "Retail investor attention and corporate green innovation: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    15. Daquan Gao & Christina W. Y. Wong & Kee-hung Lai, 2023. "Development of Ecosystem for Corporate Green Innovation: Resource Dependency Theory Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-28, March.
    16. Xianghua Yue & Shikuan Zhao & Xin Ding & Long Xin, 2022. "How the Pilot Low-Carbon City Policy Promotes Urban Green Innovation: Based on Temporal-Spatial Dual Perspectives," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20, December.
    17. Shilpy & Avadhesh Kumar, 2025. "Evaluating Supply Chain Finance Instruments for SMEs: A Stackelberg Approach to Sustainable Supply Chains Under Government Support," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-25, August.
    18. Cozarenco, Anastasia & Szafarz, Ariane, 2020. "The regulation of prosocial lending: Are loan ceilings effective?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    19. Jiang, Zihao & Liu, Zhiying, 2022. "Policies and exploitative and exploratory innovations of the wind power industry in China: The role of technological path dependence," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    20. Hao Dong & Zhenghui Li & Pierre Failler, 2020. "The Impact of Business Cycle on Health Financing: Subsidized, Voluntary and Out-of-Pocket Health Spending," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-24, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:115:y:2020:i:c:p:266-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.