Gestão financeira praticada pelas micro e pequenas empresas do Alto Vale do Itajaí - SC

Abstract

Micro and small companies play an important role in the Brazilian economy, in the generation of income and employment. Besides, they are responsible for more than 53 million jobs and represent an expressive part of business in Brazil. However, they have fragile business structures, because owners, micro and small entrepreneurs have multiple functions. In this context, this study aims to analyze how financial managers adopt the essential financial management instruments. In addition, what are the motivating and inhibiting factors that carry out to the adoption of these instruments and how the financial performance considering the liquidity perspective is perceived by companies that adopt compared to those that do not adopt these instruments. The micro and small companies of all the branches of activities of the five largest cities of Alto Vale do Itajaí, Santa Catarina, were surveyed. This study was carried out with the application of a survey with managers responsible for financial management, in 365 companies. All answers were validated. Regarding the results, this study shows that the respondents responsible for the financial management have a high degree of knowledge, a high degree of perception of the importance of the instruments for their companies and a high degree of perception of the complexity to implement some instruments and a low degree for others. Moreover, it also shows that the majority of the companies owners are the financial managers and that more than 50% of them have some higher education. The factors that motivate these companies to adopt the instruments were the daily routines and the available time. Nevertheless, the factor that inhibits the adoption is the lack of constant training to improve knowledge of the instruments. In conclusion, results show that companies that adopt the essential instruments of financial management, working capital management and cash flow planning have a better perception of financial performance from a liquidity perspective than companies that do not adopt them. To reach the results, descriptive statistics, multivariate correlations and ANOVA were used.