Capital structure of SMEs: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis
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Capital structure of SMEs: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis Satish Kumar1 · Riya Sureka1 · Sisira Colombage2 Received: 3 July 2019 / Accepted: 6 November 2019 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Abstract Capital structure is the outcome of market conditions, financial decisions taken by the firm, and credit rationing of fund providers. Research on the capital structure of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has gained momentum in recent years. The present study aims to identify key contributors, key areas, current dynamics, and suggests future research directions in the field of the capital structure of SMEs. This paper adopts a systematic literature review methodology along with bibliometric, network, and content analysis on a sample of 262 studies taken from the Web of Science database to examine the research activities that have taken place on this topic. Most influential papers are identified based on citations and PageRank, along with the most influential authors. The co-citation network is developed to see the intellectual structure of this research area. Applying bibliometric tools, four research clusters have been identified and content analysis performed on the papers identified in the clusters. It is found that the major research focus in this area is around theory testing—mainly, pecking order theory, trade-off theory, and agency theory. Determinants of capital structure, trade credit, corporate governance, and bankruptcy are also the prominent research topics in this field. Also, this study has identified the research gaps and has proposed five actionable research directions for the future. Keywords Capital structure · SME · Systematic literature review · Bibliometric analysis · Network analysis · Content analysis · Co-citation · BibExcel · Gephi JEL Classfications G32 · G3
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1130 1-019-00175-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Satish Kumar [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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1 Introduction Capital structure is the combination of financing forms (retained earnings, long-term debt, and equity) used by a firm to finance its overall operations and assets. Capital structure has a bearing on the value of both large and small firms. In a developing country like India, SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) play a significant role in strengthening the economy. Along with having a positive effect on GDP, SMEs contribute to the economic and social progress of the country by creating employment which results from an increment in the education level and ultimately, in the quality of human capital (Czarniewski 2016). In India, around 63.38 million SMEs contributed 28.77% to the GDP in the financial year 2015–2016 and created about 111 million jobs (MSME 2018). Furthermore, while studying the conversion of Central and Eastern European countries from pla
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