Entrepreneurial and Firm-Level Factors influencing Bank Credit Access of SMES

Abstract

Since SMEs lack audited financial statements, they might need to signal some of their characteristics and entrepreneurial behaviors to receive credits from banks. This is because these entrepreneurial characteristics enable them to perform financially better especially for firms having more tangible and intangible assets. In this regard, this paper examines whether Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) of larger, older and manufacturing SMEs makes positive contributions on their bank credit access or not. The researcher has collected data by an online questionnaire from the randomly selected 479 SMEs in Turkey. To find the impacts of EO and firm characteristics on bank credit access, Binary Logistic Regression test is run. According to the results, larger and manufacturing firms that behave risk averse, are more likely to access to bank finance than younger and non-manufacturing SMEs.