An Assessment of the Microfinance Product Mix in Support of Small-Scale Businesses: A Case of Choma District, Zambia (Journal of economics, business and commerce.)
Summary
- Data was collected from a sample of 40 small-scale business owners in Choma District using simple random sampling through structured questionnaires.p.1
- Savings emerged as the financial product most frequently linked to business profitability, cited by 35% of respondents.p.1
- Hypothesis testing indicated no statistically significant results at the 5% level for profitability (p = 0.6730), business growth (p = 0.4379), or operational challenges (p = 0.6730).p.1
- Selling fresh produce was the most prevalent business activity among respondents at 28 percent, followed by food vending at 22 percent.p.5
- Regarding profit increases, 28% of respondents reported profit growth above 50%, while 20% experienced no profit increase.p.6
- In terms of business growth, 45% of respondents recorded expansion above 60%, whereas over one-third reported growth below 40%.p.8
- When assessing challenge frequencies, 30% of business owners noted that challenges rarely affected them, while 25% stated that challenges always affected them.p.9
Key insights
- Hypothesis testing for profitability effects resulted in a sample mean of 3.100 against a 3.000 hypothesized value, with a z-value of 0.42 and p-value of 0.6730.p.7
- Evaluation of business growth yielded a sample mean of 3.175, a t-value of 0.78, and a p-value of 0.4379, failing to show a statistically significant impact.p.9
- The hypothesis test for business challenges showed a sample mean of 2.900, a z-value of -0.42, and a p-value of 0.6730, indicating no statistically significant difference from the hypothesized mean.p.10
- Perceptions regarding the effectiveness of combined microfinance products were divided, with 27% rating them as very effective and 25% as very ineffective.p.7
- While 28% of respondents felt business challenges impacted their enterprise greatly, 25% reported experiencing no impact at all.p.10
Pages
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p.13Topics and entities
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