Financing Bricolage in Crisis: A Behavioral Multi-Criteria Decision Framework for Ranking Alternative Funding Pathways in Sub-Saharan African SMEs

Abstract Small and medium-sized enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa face severe financing constraints, exacerbated by Ghana's banking crisis from 2017 to 2019, which eroded trust and deepened credit rationing. While entrepreneurs turn to alternative financing, behavioral finance offers limited insight into how psychological and social factors shape their evaluation and combination of options in crises. This study contributes to corporate finance and behavioral finance theory by developing a behavioral Financing Bricolage Under Rejection framework to explain how entrepreneurs creatively recombine funding sources when formal finance fails. Using a mixed-methods design, Grounded Theory identifies six behaviorally-grounded decision criteria, validated through a survey of 412 SMEs and integrated into an entropy-weighted TOPSIS model. Results show digital alternatives, particularly peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding, outrank equity-based mechanisms due to speed, accessibility, and peer-mediated information flows. Adoption Velocity and Perceived Barriers emerge as key criteria, highlighting liquidity urgency and loss-avoidance in crisis-driven decision-making. The study advances corporate finance theory by modeling SME capital structure decisions under institutional uncertainty and offers practical insights for financial institutions and fintech developers. It advances behavioral finance by conceptualizing Resource Bricolage Capacity as a strategic capability and introduces a decolonized MCDM framework for African contexts. Policy implications highlight the need to strengthen digital lending ecosystems, improve regulatory clarity, and design crisis-responsive financing products to enhance SME financing resilience. Keywords: Small and medium-sized enterprises; Behavioral Finance; Decision-Making; Grounded Theory; Financing Bricolage; entropy-weighted TOPSIS; Sub-Saharan Africa