The level of financial literacy of managers and entrepreneurs: a comparison between Portugal and Russia
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The aim of this study is to compare the level of financial literacy of managers and entrepreneurs of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) of Portugal and Russia. As secondary goal is to analyse if socioeconomic factors determine the level of financial literacy among managers/entrepreneurs. This research was conducted in the North of Portugal and some regions in Russian Federation for the period of March to May 2017. Secondary data (namely the contact data) for this research were gathered from SABI database (for Portuguese sample) and with the help of personal and business contacts of researchers (for Russian sample). It was adopted a quantitative design as research methodology. Collection of primary data (assessing the financial literacy level of SMEs’ financial managers/entrepreneurs) was obtained with a structured questionnaire that is mostly based on methodology used on International Survey of Adult Financial Literacy Competencies from OECD in 2016. It was applied to managers/entrepreneurs of the companies selected for the survey. It carried out during March until 26th of May 2017, using three main approaches: by email, by telephone and by personal visits. It was obtained 62 respondents, 33 from Russia and 29 from Portugal. The results suggest entrepreneurs’ Financial Literacy Level (FLL), generally speaking, it is unexpectedly high and there is no significant difference among countries’ variable. The analysis did not confirm any significant differences of FLL’ results between the five age groups in both countries, nor in relation to company’ size. Surprisingly, the analysis did not identify any significant differences between formal education levels, which means the availability of Higher Education degree does not always guarantee the Financial Knowledge. It seems that there is no statistically significant difference of FLL among male and female respondents. Although the average score of men’ responds seems to be higher that of female gender.
