Digital Financial Services and Strategic Financial Management: Financial Services Firms and Microenterprises in African Markets
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Good evening. The article is interesting and relevant.
But the article would benefit significantly if the researched material were presented in tabular form.
Author Response
Thank you for your kind comment.
This study uses an ethnographic approach, which entails learning about people, through immersion in the participant's world, allowing for seeing, learning, and interpreting their reality. We, the researchers, engage with the participants in their natural environment.
It is important to adequately reference the participant's comments on the topic that was asked. Thus, we cannot present the results in a table form.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper addresses a very interesting topic and is well structured. However, some improvements are required:
Section2 "Conceptual Foundations": I consider that some more relevant bibliographic sources can be identified, consulted and added
Section 4. Findings: The words of the respondents should be highlighted more clearly in the text (italics or use of quotation marks)
Section 5. Discussions and Conclusions: The results of the authors should be compared with the results of researches addressing similar themes (new and relevant bibliographic sources).
Author Response
Please find attached our comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors of the manuscript "Digital Financial Services and Strategic Financial Management: Financial Services Firms and Microenterprises in African Markets",
I have analyzed your paper and I have the following remarks:
1. The topic of the manuscript is very trendy, but the article needs serious improvements.
2. In the Introduction, at row 47, you have a dot (".") in the middle of the sentence, before the word "elements". You should correct this issue.
3. The Introduction section should present in a clear manner the following aspects: the research gap, the research goal and the research questions. Please add a distinct paragraph where to centralize this aspects, because the readers need a very clear direction.
4. Within your text I found some similarities with previous published articles. For example, your text between rows 230-232, 278-293 can be found in the article available at https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2007.26279173.
The same remark for the rows 233-244 which are similar to https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IMR-11-2015-0256/full/html.
Also, the rows 104-109, 458-464 are similar to https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.bm.2550080.
I recommend you to try to adapt and update these sequences of text in order to decrease the degree of similarity.
5. The chapter "2. Conceptual Foundations" should end with the definition and description of the research hypothesis of your research. At this moment, there isn't any research hypothesis defined in your manuscript proposal.
I recommend you to define a research hypothesis, based on previous results from the literature.
6. Between rows 158-160 you say that "The methodology involved interviews as well as in-face-to-face meetings with 15 financial services firms and their associated microenterprise customers from a multinational financial services firm, a local financial services firm and a local microfinance firm." Please present to the readers the following key information:
- how did you select those financial companies?
- where are these companies from?
- how relevant are they to the financial industry?
7. In the section between rows 248-256 you present "Grand tour questions were used as ice-breakers to solicit information from customers. Questions asked included..."
And then you describe 4-5 questions.
Please specify the following aspects:
- where did these questions appear from? Did you use an existing survey model? If yes, please specify the source. If not, please argue why did you choose these questions?
- how relevant are the questions for the study? How did you test and check the relevance?
8. At rows 356-258 you say "For example, in Ghana, daily visits 356 from a ‘susu’ savings collector motivated susu users to meet their savings obligations and explains, in part, why MFS consumers doubt the effectiveness of mobile money as an alternative saving method."
Please define what "susu" means, because the international readers of the journal don't know this term.
9. In section "5. Discussions and Conclusions" I recommend you to include a deeper discussion about your research results and the previous results from the literature, by citing the following valuable references: https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2020.1840324, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.frl.2021.102149, https://doi.org/10.15240/tul/001/2021-2-007, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.11.020, https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12379.
You should use these recommended references in order to make a short comparative study between your research results and the existing context in Africa, America, Europe and Asia.
Best Wishes!
Author Response
Please see attached document.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
For the revised version of your article I have one minor recommendation: please include the limitations of your research in the Conclusions section.
Best Regards!
Author Response
- Limitations
We should be reminded that these findings represent an important role between FSPs and CMS in Ghana, making it an important country specific contribution. On the other hand, results cannot be generalized to other countries and further research is needed to corroborate the benefits that digital financial markets can have not only country wise, but in different cultures, such as Hispanic and Latin, as well as other collaborative entities.
Social sustainability extends to all global markets with special focus on emerging markets. Rather than look to overcome this weakness, it is important to see our contributions to how emerging marketing can help multi national corporations craft strategies and envisions knowledge transfer between the parties involved.
Fintech, the technology used to support or enable banking and financial services, has grown rapidly and has become very competitive in economies with formal banking sectors. Yet, these innovations need to be further tested over a full financial cycle with governance mechanisms in place and accounting for investor protection and adequate consumer assessment. And it is in this intersection where we find a bit limitation of our study. Although we present a technology needed in put into use, at a larger scope, there is a technology already in place that is working its way globally, making it a big challenge if commercial banks make more extens use of these innovations.
The concept of ‘Ubuntu’ is universal, and thus has the potential to be applicable to all businesses. However, in our study, we narrow down the application to a dyad of relationships. Further research is needed to test the application of Ubuntu in cross-sectional studies and across a multiple set of industries. Ubuntu has the potential to promote globalization of human beings and a reflective business practice that promotes innovation and idea creation.
Methodologically speaking, ethnography is a qualitative research methodology that has received great support and it is robust in data collection when immersing in the subject’s lives is an important aspect to understand the phenomena in question. In our study, we are aware and accept that we are adapting to what our subjects are bringing from their experiences. In that regard, we were able to collect rich information along with observation and in-depth interviews. However, a hybrid study involving more robust quantitative research methodologies, aligned with ethnography, have the potential to make our results conclusive, generalizable, and valid, which in turn, will give a foundation for comparison and enrichment and contribution to the literature.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
