Microfinance is seen as an important vehicle for developing small businesses in developing and transitional economies despite the relative absence of supporting research. We use mixed methods to offer a nuanced empirical exploration of the relationship between microfinance and everyday entrepreneurial practice-(s) in Kazakhstan. As in many transitional contexts, 'unbankable' borrowers here operate in a vibrant informal sector, face high degrees of uncertainty, and retain a strong distrust of a corrupt/predatory state. Our data-based methodology for analysing borrowers' diverse relationships with microfinance organisations (MFOs) generates insights into their multiple pathways to business development. Both 'outreac\h' and 'commercialised' MFOs sustain micro-flows of resources that are critical for everyday entrepreneurs who need to finance ongoing consumption and contingencies whilst also (and by) building up their small businesses. Microfinance use did not promote formalisation or impersonalised banking relationships. Instead, MFOs focused primarily on repayment, clients' businesses remained partially formalised or unregistered across all stages of growth and the lending relationships preferred by Private MFOs and borrowers were highly personalised. Consequently, we call for assumptions about how microfinance can (and should) drive small business development need to be rethought for transitional contexts.

Although the extant research in entrepreneurial innovation shows how organizational challenges could enact such innovations, the relationship between organizational challenges and organizational innovation under the small and medium enterprise (SME) context requires attention. Especially considering that SMEs face supply chain challenges, we need to know whether such challenges consistently enact supply chain innovations. Moreover, although those innovations can address the immediate SME challenges, extant research does not capture the life cycle of the innovations efficiently. To find an answer to this theoretical quest, we conduct participatory case research at Saha Textile, India. The founder of Saha Textile started his journey as a small garment shop owner in a Bazar. Within two decades, Saha Textile became one of the most prominent vertically integrated organizations in the Indian textile sector. Our reflexive process study reveals that the organization faced multiple survival threats throughout its journey. The uniqueness of the organizational crisis enacted sensemaking in the organization. The organization looked at unusual and unconventional resources within its access and creatively converted those into valuable resources to address the challenges. If successful with the creative attempts in addressing the pressing challenges—the organization further strengthened those resources into core competence. Over time, the organizational learning in converting crisis to core competencies through creative utilization of resources became rational heuristics and acted as a (higher-order) dynamic capability. Our inductive theorization makes a significant academic contribution as it proposes a generalizable dynamic capability process model of converting crisis into innovation and capitalizing such innovations as a core competence. Our research points out the possibility of standardizing and leveraging innovations-as-crisis-responses as core competence towards a sustainable competitive advantage for practice.

Formal credit markets in developing countries are less advanced and therefore, obtaining external funding is difficult for entrepreneurs. As such, microfinance can be a viable alternative solution. This study demonstrates the diverse structure of the microfinance sector and the crucial role of commercial microfinance as a growth trigger in Kazakhstan. By drawing on data from six in-depth interviews with key microfinance industry informants and 155 structured interviews with entrepreneurial users of microfinance lending in Kazakhstan, we found that commercial and outreach microfinance organizations (MFOs) have differing capital structures and evaluation criteria and serve different types of entrepreneurs. Although commercial MFOs distance themselves from poor entrepreneurs, their role in supporting entrepreneurship is important as they provide ongoing funding access and, therefore, tackle entrepreneurs’ working capital dilemmas

Learning Outcomes The learning outcomes are as follows: to understand the internal processes that take place in social media influencers operations; to evaluate the role communication and planning in the social media marketing process; to discover the importance of social media as a pinnacle of new communication mix tool; to make strategic decisions in managing a social media account; and to highlight how the team internal interactions could determine the success and profitability of the social media influencer. Case overview/Synopsis Case deals with the growth and managing issues faced by the social media influencers in Kazakhstan. The case shows the other side of social media marketing, where the main focus is shifted from the corporate clients, who use social media influencer, toward the influencers themselves and challenges faced by them. Hence, the case reveals the story of Jokeasses team, who are based in Kazakhstan with significant following both on Instagram and YouTube platforms. The decision-making dilemmas in the case focused upon not only the issues of brand formation but also how online brand could be transferred into profitable enterprise. Complexity academic level Bachelor Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to investigate factors affecting the access of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)to external financing in Kazakhstan. The data set of this research is obtained from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS) conducted by the World Bank in Kazakhstan in 2019. The results of the analysis showed that such factors as revenue, the availability of collateral, previously received loans, have a positive impact on the decision to grant a loan by financial institutions. However, the results of the analysis did not show a statistically significant effect of the size and age of the enterprise on access to credit, which was proved by a number of studies in other countries. The results of the analysis also showed that access to external financing is significantly limited for enterprises implementing innovative products or services, which is explained by the riskiness of these enterprises from the point of view of creditors. It is interesting to note that the analysis showed a statistically significant positive relationship between access to credit and a female manager, which proves that there is no discrimination on gender grounds when making a decision to issue a loan in Kazakhstan. The results obtained can be used to develop more effective conditions for lending to SMEs, as well as to improve scoring models for SMEs, where the main criteria may be the history and potential of the company, rather than the current financial situation and the availability of collateral.