Soft skills in action: Enhancing entrepreneurial growth through commitment and bricolage strategies

The argument holds that visionary and dynamic small and medium enterprises (SMEs) tend to position growth at the centre of strategy. However, there has been a growing body of literature that has examined how financial literacy can support owner-managers
of SMEs in making solid financial decisions that will enhance the growth of their businesses. In the present study, financial literacy and financial resource availability were modelled as different antecedents of SMEs growth. Nevertheless, the boundary condition for such models has received very little attention in the context of Ghana. Accordingly, in regard to resource-based view (RBV) logic, the current research examined the implications of contingency variable financial literacy (proficiency) on the relationship between financial resource availability and SMEs growth, particularly in the context of Ghana. The findings of the current research revealed that high financial literacy led to more positive effect of financial resource availability on SMEs growth.

This paper examines capital structure determinants for service companies in Jordan between 2014 and 2018. Secondary data from 45 companies were analyzed using the panel regression approach. The results show that the independent variables, suggested as capital structure determinants, have an effect on the debt ratio made by the service companies. Size and non-debt tax shield have a positive significant effect on the debt ratio, while profitability and business risk have a negative significant impact on the debt ratio. In general, the findings support the notion that the trade-off, bankruptcy cost, agency cost and pecking order theories are crucial in explaining the capital structure of Jordanian service companies except for non-debt tax shields and tangibility factors. Jordanian service companies do not use fixed assets as collateral or companies with higher collateral value tend to borrow less debt. Although the coefficient of institutional investors is statistically insignificant, it is still negative and economically significant. This paper concludes that size, profitability, business risk, non-debt tax shields and institutional ownership factors are fundamental in terms of shaping the capital structure in Jordanian service companies.

Critical to the sustainability and continuous success of every organization is the performance concept. Hence, the cardinal goal of every organization is to achieve sustainable progressive performance for their organization. Several factors have been found to contribute to the performance of an organization. While empirical evidence indicated that innovativeness is one of the major determinants of organizational performance, many fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) were slow in their demonstration of innovative capability and it has been noted that the performance of these companies has not been impressive possibly due to the slow pace of innovativeness in the industry. This study thus investigated the effect of innovative strategies on the growth of selected FMCG firms in Lagos state, Nigeria. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 1,337 top and middle level management staff of four notable players in the FMCG industry in the state (Honeywell flower mills Plc, Dangote flower mills, Unilever Nigeria Plc, and Cadbury Nigeria Plc). Through proportionate stratified random sampling technique, 400 out of 1,337 were sampled for the study. Four hundred copies of a validated questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient ranging from 0.731 to 0.956 were administered to the sample with a response rate of 84.25%. Data were analyzed using both descriptive, as well as inferential statistics. Finding revealed that innovative strategies had a significant effect on growth of FMCG firms in Lagos state, Nigeria (R2 = 0.724, β = 0.887, t = 29.663, P ≤ 0.05). The study recommends that FMCG firms management need to initiate policies that will enhance innovativeness possibly through creation and proper funding of the research and development department to effectively drive growth of FMCG firms.