Investigating Financial Resilience and Survivability of SMEs in Africa: A Panel Study

Aim of the Study The unprecedented economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic has renewed the debate on SME resilience in dealing with such pandemics and other business shocks. SME resilience largely depends on the financial capability of the SME as well as the presence of various environmental factors serving as coping mechanisms. Thus, financial capability supports the ability of the SME to adapt to both internal and external shocks, which usually forms an integral part of an organisational resilience strategy for survivability. Methodology Through a deductive research approach, this study adopted a longitudinal research design using twelve (12) year secondary data on five (5) predictors of financial resilience, namely public policy, specific tax policies, SME training, R&D, and accounting and assessment services for 20 African countries. A two-stage hierarchical Multiple Linear Regression (MRL) was executed to test five hypotheses relating to SME financial resilience in Africa.