A Dissertation submitted in partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the
Degree of Masters of Business Administration of
Mzumbe University
This entails the description of the study on assessing the impact of social economic
characteristics of small firms on formal financial access efficiency in Tanzania. The
study was conducted specifically in Dar es Salaam city using mixed research
methods as being the combination between qualitative and quantitative approaches.
The facts to fill the study gap were gathered from the small business owners and key
informants using structured questionnaires and interviews from the sample of 141
respondents. The information collected using questionnaires was filled in SPSS data
sheet whereas descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were generated to present
the findings. Information generate using interviews was analyzed using content
analysis technique which was presented using themes to support the findings.
Findings of the study revealed that with the first objective several features were
noted on small business owners to the formal financing practices such informality of
the enterprises, limited understanding, and others. On the efficiency of the lending
entities it has been noted that they are highly useful and effective at the problem are
the enterprises since they are unable to match with the requirements. Moreover, on
the relationship between study variables it has been noted that among six variables
tested on financial access efficiency as the dependent variable four of them namely
firm size, firm collaterals, business information and legal status of the enterprises are
positive with significant effect on the dependent variable. However, location and age
of the firm have been found insignificant to the financial access efficiency. This
implies that formal financial access efficiency in small business is adequate though
the problem are the enterprises failing to meet the lenders requirements to be assisted
financially.