Resumo

In the context of mompreneurship (women entrepreneurs that are also mothers), little is known about the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) adoption. Although several studies have already investigated digital financial services (DFS) use by women entrepreneurs, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the impacts related to the use of DFS specifically by mompreneurs. It is important to note that the agenda related to financial services also includes a debate regarding female financial inclusion.

The main purpose of this paper is to test the effect of digital financial services (DFS) adoption on the satisfaction with business performance, considering a subgroup of women entrepreneurs that are also mothers, known as mompreneurs. The research question that guides this paper is: what is the effect of DFS on the satisfaction with business performance, considering a sample comprised of mompreneurs?

The quantitative model of this study considers three constructs that were developed based on previous research. The main dependent variable is performance satisfaction, that is expected to be explained by digital financial services (DFS) adoption. Moreover, the quantitative model considers attitude as an antecedent of DFS adoption. We also included a control variable, called services, in order to check if the perception related to performance satisfaction differs between businesses of the service sector and businesses of the retail-related sector.

The sample is exclusively comprised of responses from mompreneurs. The respondents are from the region of Triângulo Mineiro (State of Minas Gerais, Brazil). The responses were collected during the period from April, 2020 to June, 2020 (which involves the COVID-19 related crisis). The final sample is comprised of 177 complete questionnaires. Using the confirmatory factor analysis, we evaluated the convergent and discriminant validity, in order to access the convergence and internal consistence of each construct. Then, we tested the hypotheses using structural equation model.

The effect of attitude on the adoption of digital financial services (DFS) was positive and significant at 1%, which is in line with H1. Additionally, the variable attitude presented a positive, significant and indirect effect on performance satisfaction, suggesting that attitude has also indirect effects in the quantitative model that was evaluated. The main results also indicate that the adoption of digital financial services has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction with business performance among mompreneurs, which supports H2.

The use of technologies to make electronic payments related to the business, to manage the bank account of the business, and to provide electronic payment alternatives for customers can increase the business performance satisfaction among the participants of the research. Considering that data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of technological resources (such as digital financial services) seems to contribute to mitigate the negative effects from external crisis, particularly in periods of lockdowns and stay-at-home orientations.

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