Search results for "Microfinance"
showing 10 items of 95 documents
Do Female Loan Officers Mitigate Social-Financial Trade-Offs in Microfinance?
2021
This paper revisits social-financial trade-offs in microfinance. We theorize that workforce diversity mitigates the divergence between social and financial performance levels. We test our prediction by performing fixed-effects generalised least squares regressions on a global sample of 1257 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in 107 countries over the period 2010–2018. Confirming our prediction, the empirical results show that the proportion of female loan officers attenuates the negative relationship between the social performance and the financial performance of MFIs. We attribute our findings to the personal characteristics of female loan officers and the high repayment rates of loans that …
Performance and international investments in microfinance institutions
2013
Preprint of the published version of an article from Strategic Change Using data from 319 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in 68 developing countries, we study the degree to which international debt investments are related to the financial and social performances of MFIs. We find that commercial investments are mainly related to financial performance and level of professionalisation of the MFIs. The targeting of women is not a priority, even though international commercial investors target MFIs that provide small loans. Subsidised investments, however, are mainly driven by the targeting of women, while financial performance and the level of professionalisation of the MFI is not a priority.
Roles Of Stakeholders In Strategic Decision-Making Of Microfinance Organizations
2009
Microfinance organizations provide financial services to low income people. These organizations have been increasing dramatically worldwide. This increment calls attention for these organizations and their boards to make strategic decisions which enable them perform well and compete with each other. Based on literature, this paper identifies six types of microfinance stakeholders who sit on boards. These are clients, employees, government, donors, creditors and owners. The paper discusses different roles of these stakeholders when they sit on boards of Microfinance Organizations. These roles are further explained to show how they contribute to the process of making strategic decisions. Lite…
Governance and Scope Economies in Microfinance Institutions
2013
This paper studies the relation between board size and composition and cost savings (scope economies) from combining savings mobilization and lending by Microfinance Institutions. The findings support the hypothesis that employee representation on the board is associated with positive scope economies, possibly due to internal knowledge. However, CEO Chairman duality is associated with equal or larger probability of scope diseconomies, which is consistent with previous findings. Representation of other stakeholders on the MFI board does not affect scope economies. The results seem to support the notion that, in highly uncertain environments, group cohesion may be an advantageous mechanism of…
Does it (re)pay to be female? Considering gender in microfinance loan officer-client pairs
2021
This paper examines the effect of the gender combination of client-loan officer pairs on loan repayment in an Ecuadorian microfinance institution. We show that among the four possible client-loan officer gender pairs i.e. female client-female loan officer, female client-male loan officer, male client-male loan officer and male client-female loan officer, the most favourable pairs in terms of repayment are those with female loan officers whereas the least favourable are those with male loan officers. We also show that repayment is even further enhanced for all client-loan officer pairs when the client’s previous loan officer was a woman. Our findings point to relational differences between m…
Measuring microfinance performance
2015
MFIs are measured according to two dimensions. One is their outreach to poor people, that is, their ability to provide poor families access to financial services. This is the MFIs’ social mission. The other dimension is their financial sustainability, that is, their ability to pay their employees, lenders, and other suppliers, in short, their ability to produce a profit from their operations. We set out the main microfinance measures and confirm earlier findings that profitability is rather weak in microfinance, and that operational costs constitute a large part of the total costs. We argue that researchers should put more efforts into identifying the MFI’s cost drivers because social outre…
The governance of non-profit micro finance institutions: lessons from history
2009
Published version of an article in the journal: Journal of Management & Governance. Also available from Springer: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10997-009-9116-7 Microfinance is high on the public agenda, and better corporate governance has been identified as a key factor for enhancing the viability of the industry. However, recent literature on the subject struggles to identify the corporate governance mechanisms that influence the performance of the Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs). Guided by stakeholder and agency theories, this paper uses a historical parallel found in savings banks to present corporate governance lessons for MFIs, particularly non-profit MFIs, today. The findings indicate…
Governance and scope economies in microfinance institutions
2013
This paper studies the relation between board size and composition and cost savings (scope economies) from combining savings mobilisation and lending by Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). The findings support the hypothesis that employee representation on the board is associated with positive scope economies, possibly due to internal knowledge. However, CEO-Chairman duality is associated with equal or larger probability of scope diseconomies, which is consistent with previous findings. Representation
Access to Mainstream Microfinance Services for Persons with Disabilities – Lessons Learned from Uganda
2009
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Audit Quality and Corporate Governance: Evidence from the Microfinance Industry
2015
This study uses a unique hand-collected sample of for-profit and nonprofit microfinance institutions from 70 developing countries to analyse the relationships between audit quality and governance mechanisms. We examine two measures of audit quality, namely, the use of Big Four auditors and the presence of internal auditors. The empirical analysis of this study reveals that these two quality metrics are highly related, although we also demonstrate that these metrics capture distinctive aspects of audit quality. In particular, the presence of internal auditors is related to other indicators of stricter governance, whereas the use of Big Four auditors is generally unrelated to other governance…