Determinants of small enterprise failure in Angola: a managerial and financial perspective

Abstract

It is well established that a number of factors contribute disproportionately to the failure of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in most economies. This paper examined the contribution of managerial and financial factors to the failure of MSEs in the context of Angola.The paper adopted a positivist theoretical perspective, by utilizing the questionnaire as the primary data collection instrument within the quantitative research technique. Data was collectedfrom108 small business owners and managers with business failure experiences approached through snowballing sampling technique. The data were analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program. The results ascertain that, insufficient knowledge in the domain of business systems, insufficient skills in the domain of financial accounting, and negligence to plan and control business resources, by the small business owners and managers were among the factors that contributed to small enterprise failure in Angola. This reports the lack of institutions actively in promoting entrepreneurship for knowledge and skills development and the absence of successful entrepreneurial role models, business mentors, or coaches for entrepreneurial capacity building.