IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-031-74050-3_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Financial Literacy and Financial Sustainability of Micro-businesses at Bokamoso Entrepreneurial Centre in Namibia

In: Sustainable Finance and Business in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • David Fillipus

    (Department of Finance, Ministry of Works and Transport)

  • Dzingirai Canicio

    (University of Namibia)

Abstract

Increased globalisation, sophistication, and fast development pace of financial systems worldwide in recent years demand entrepreneurs to make matching complex financial decisions and have sound financial literacy. Financial literacy is regarded as a critical asset and driving force in any business operation and a panacea to its success and graduation from micro-business to an established big corporate. It is considered that micro-businesses are not resilient to crises as compared to large firms and possibly due to high levels of financial illiteracy among their owners and managers. This study seeks to investigate the role of financial literacy on the financial sustainability of micro-businesses at Namibia’s Bokamoso Entrepreneurial Centre. Out of a population of 22 micro-business owners at the Centre, the response rate was 82%. The study employed interpretivism philosophy, inductive and deductive approaches, mono-qualitative method, survey and case study strategies, exploratory design, and self-administered interviews. Results from NVIVO thematic analysis show that 89% of micro-business owners have a low level of financial literacy, which possibly hinders the financial sustainability of Namibian micro-businesses. The study also revealed that all micro-businesses in the Centre do not have access to funds from the formal financial system. This may be caused by micro-business owners’ low level of financial literacy, which reduces their confidence to participate in the formal financial market, which ultimately influences their financial decision-making. It was also revealed that politics, high collateral security requirements, and lack of information are some of the major factors that prevent micro-businesses from accessing funds. Furthermore, evidence shows that 78% of micro-business owners have bad financial attitudes. As an antidote, the study recommends that financial education be introduced in schools from the primary school level. There is also a need for major players in the financial system to conduct seminars to create awareness and make information available to micro-business owners.

Suggested Citation

  • David Fillipus & Dzingirai Canicio, 2024. "Financial Literacy and Financial Sustainability of Micro-businesses at Bokamoso Entrepreneurial Centre in Namibia," Springer Books, in: David Mhlanga & Mufaro Dzingirai (ed.), Sustainable Finance and Business in Sub-Saharan Africa, chapter 0, pages 71-106, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-74050-3_5
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-74050-3_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    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:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-74050-3_5. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.