Background
Improving Financial Literacy – an omnibus term that captures financial knowledge, financial behavior and financial attitudes – has become a priority in many countries. A recent OECD study conducted among households in 30 countries concludes that financial literacy is low – 51% of respondents achieved the minimum target score – and that financial resilience should be strengthened (OECD, 2016). The consequences of poor financial literacy are well-known and include poor financial planning (Lusardi and Mitchell, 2007) and greater indebtedness (Lusardi and Tufano, 2015).

While most of the financial literacy research focuses on households, this project focuses on an under-investigated group: small-business owners (SBOs). Investigating financial literacy among SBOs is important for several reasons. First, a positive relation between an SBO’s financial literacy and the business’ financial health suggests that financial education programs may positively affect the financial wellbeing of SBOs. Second, financially sound businesses are more resilient to external shock and thus increase the survival rate of small businesses.

A Multidisciplinary Approach
Financial education programs typically target knowledge and skills, based on the assumption that behavior change will follow. However, behavior is caused by many other determinants such as habit, perceived norms, perceived behavioral control, self-identity, and goal conflicts (Crutzen et al., 2017). An effective financial literacy education program needs to address these behavioral determinants as well as financial knowledge and skills. The end goal of this project is to develop a financial education program that enhances financial literacy by improving knowledge and skills and bringing about the required behavioral change.

Hence, the project will require you to investigate:1. The relation between financial literacy and financial resilience among SBOs; 2. The behavioral determinants that prevent behavioral change and how to overcome this; 3. Effective educational methods to enhance financial literacy and ensure the behavioural change required.

References

Crutzen, R., Peters, G.-J. Y., & Noijen, J. (2017). Using Confidence Interval-Based Estimation of Relevance to select social-cognitive determinants for behaviour change interventions. Frontiers in Public Health, 5, 165.

Lusardi, A., Mitchell, O.S., 2007b. Financial literacy and retirement preparedness: evidence and implications for financial education. Business Economics 42, 35–44.

Lusardi, A. & Tufano, P., (2015). Debt literacy, financial experiences, and overindebtedness, Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(04), pages 332-368, October

OECD (2016), “OECD/INFE International Survey of Adult Financial Literacy Competencies”, OECD, Paris, www.oecd.org/finance/OECD-INFE-International-Survey-of-Adult-Financial-Literacy-Competencies.pdf

Peters, G.-J. Y., & Crutzen, R. (2021). The core of behavior change: Introducing the Acyclic Behavior Change Diagram to report and analyze interventions [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w85va

Since the skills required for the PhD project come from different disciplines, applicants are encouraged to indicate how they meet/exceed the required skills and/or how they will overcome deficiencies in specfic domains.
Required:

• master Degree in Business/Economics, Psychology or a related field.
• Fluent in Dutch and English
• Strong analytical skills and experience/affinity in working with advanced analytical and reseach software (e.g., R or Python, Git, OSF, etc.)

Preferred:

• Expertise/experience within the field of financial literacy; knowledge of financial concepts and how these concepts can be applied in the context of households/small businesses.
• Expertise/knowledge in the area of financial resilience. Knowledge of measuring financial distress and the financial position of small businesses/households.
• Expertise/knowledge in determinant studies and the psychology of behavior change
• Experience with intervention development and/or the Intervention Mapping protocol
• Record of an eagerness to explore/learn new competences and skill
• Training in or experience with systematic review methods
• Experience with practicing Open Science (e.g. open data, preregistration, preprints)

Fixed-term contract: The PhD candidate will be appointed for a period of 12 months. The appointment will be extended to 4 years when progress and performance are good.

The salary is determined in accordance with salary scale P of Appendix A of the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities and amounts to €2.395 per month upon commencement, in case of full employment.

The Open Universiteit provides good secondary benefits such as training, mobility, part-time employment and paid parental leave.

The PhD candidate will be stationed at the Open University campus in Heerlen within the Faculty of Management Science. Since the project is multidisciplinary, the student will closely collaborate with co-promotors from the Faculties of Psychology and Educational Sciences.

The Open Universiteit

Studying online anywhere in the Netherlands and Belgium (Flanders)
The Open Universiteit (OU) is the university in the Netherlands where students study part-time and follow online and activating education in bachelor and master degree programmes in seven fields of study. Characteristics of the education are openness, flexibility and quality. Enhancing the study success of students is an important point of focus. More than 15.000 students are studying at the OUNL and it has almost 700 employees. The OU has a network of regional study centres in the Netherlands and in Belgium (Flanders) (https://www.ou.nl/studiecentra). The head office is situated in Heerlen.

The most modern technologies and educational insights are applied in bachelor and master programmes and courses and also in projects and programmes with partners. Nationally and internationally the OU plays a key role in the innovation of higher education. Education and research are closely interrelated which guarantees that the current state of science is applied. The OU not only invests in research in the various academic disciplines, but also in research in the field of learning, teaching and technology.

 Satisfied students
For several consecutive years, the OU has achieved a top position among the fourteen Dutch universities in the National Students Survey, the Dutch university guide ‘Keuzegids Universiteiten’ (in which the ratings by students and experts of the bachelor studies of the fourteen universities are compared), and the Dutch university guide ‘Keuzegids Masters’. In addition, all studies score high in the rankings of the universities for these studies. All ratings are available on the OU-website (https://www.ou.nl/rankings).

The PhD position is part of the multidisciplinary research program “Innovating for Resilience”.

The Open University is looking for a PhD Candidate for the project “Improving financial literacy among small business owners”. The project will cover the disciplines of Management Science, Psychology, and Educational Science (see the project description below).