APPLICATION OF BUCKLEY’S FUZZY AHP TO IDENTIFY THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR AFFECTING THE UNORGANIZED MICROENTREPRENEURS’ BORROWING DECISION

Unorganized micro-entrepreneurs play an important role in economic development. They provide useful place utility to various goods in streets. They have limited funds and always dependent on external sources for their business expansion. Extant literature also tells us that the small business entrepreneurs' financing decision is not same as corporate finance. Because, these people have no or limited access to the formal financial institutions to go for debt financing. In this context, we have reached out to several micro-entrepreneurs in India and identified seven most important factors affecting their borrowing decision. Then we have used Buckley's AHP technique to figure out the most important factor relative to the other six factors. It turns out that repaying capacity is the most important factor that influences the decision of going for borrowed funds. This methodology and application to the field of micro-entrepreneurial finance is first of its kind and we also recommend policy holders to concentrate on providing easy access and tax carry forward to encourage micro-entrepreneurs in unorganized sector to access formal financial institutions for business funds