Sources of motivation for Moroccan SMES to choose participative banking products: an empirical study of SMES in the Fez-Meknes region

This paper aims to study the attitude of Moroccan SME owner-managers to adopting participatory financial products as an alternative decision to conventional financing. The research adopted a quantitative approach based on a questionnaire administered to 130 owner-managers of SMEs operating in the Fez-Meknes region. For the analysis of the data collected, the preferred method was structural equation modeling, considered the most appropriate for investigating the complex relationships between the variables in this study. The results of this analysis show that two factors play a decisive role in the adoption of participatory financial products: religious obligation and the reputation of financial institutions. Religious obligation appears to be a fundamental element guiding the decisions of managers seeking solutions in line with their spiritual convictions, while the reputation of participatory banks as a new financial player proves decisive in the trust owner-managers place in these institutions. These findings underline the importance of these two dimensions in the behavior of SME managers in the Fez-Meknes region, and more broadly in the adoption of participatory financing in Morocco. Keywords: Participative finance, Participative financial products, small and medium-sized enterprises, attitude, religiosity, reputation. JEL Classification: G4 Paper type: Empirical research