Does Entrepreneur Innovativeness Moderate The Relationship Between Strategic Orientation And Financial Inclusion?

Abstract

Purpose- Although previous papers have attempted to explore the determinants of financial inclusion, few studies have interrogated the role of innovativeness in financial addition. This study examines the moderating role of entrepreneur innovativeness on the relationship between strategic orientation and financial inclusion
 Design/Methodology - We used two indicators to measure financial inclusion; digital financial inclusion scale and traditional financial inclusion scale. Three proxies were used to measure strategic orientation; learning orientation, market orientation, and technology orientation. Survey data obtained from 634 women entrepreneurs was used, and the hypothesis was tested using moderated regression analysis. 
 Findings - The empirical results supported the hypothesis that innovative entrepreneur moderates the relationship between strategic orientation and financial inclusion. In particular, the results indicated that at higher levels of entrepreneur innovativeness, learning orientation has a stronger effect on financial inclusion. Similarly, the results also indicated that at high levels of entrepreneur innovativeness, technology orientation affects financial inclusion. In contrast with the other findings showing a positive moderating effect, at higher levels of entrepreneur innovativeness, the impact of market orientation on financial inclusion is low.
 Practical Implications - The findings are useful to the government and practitioners for designing policies and training programs geared to increasing the level of financial inclusion among women Small and Medium Enterprises.

Government and private sectors' electronic transfer practices and financial inclusion in the economic community of the West African States

“…In addition to the geographical dimensionality in the above-discussed literature, the authors have also considered a wide array of thematic on the topic of financial inclusion in Africa. From the perspective of the drivers of financial inclusion in the region, studies have pointed out numerous factors including technology (Chu, 2018;Oluwatayo, 2014;Oluwatayo, 2017), micro-finance (Hussaini & Chibuzo, 2018), entrepreneurial innovativeness (Nguli & Odunga, 2019), and socio-demographic factors such as gender (Chowdhury et al, 2018;Ogunleye, 2017) and religion (Mustafa et al, 2018;Umar et al, 2019). Similarly, from the perspective of the consequential outcomes of financial inclusion in Africa, the review by Demirguc-Kunt et al (2017) summarized the empirical literature on the importance of financial inclusion for inclusive growth, which was further supported by Gretta (2017), and recently updated by Demirguc-Kunt et al (2020) that pointed out the opportunities of expanding access to and usage of financial services, through greater financial inclusion in Africa.…”