Financial information usefulness in decision-making: the perception of Luanda and Lisbon SMEs managers

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) represent a segment in the global economy of utmost importance. In the EU these companies represent 99% of the business and employ about 90 million workers (EUROPEAN COMMISSION, 2012). For the continuity of these companies in a changing world where the market is increasingly competitive, information plays a crucial role. However that information must meet the qualitative characteristics of financial information, in particular, understandability, relevance, reliability and comparability, otherwise it will not be useful. Thus, this work aims to study the level of perception that managers of SMEs located in Luanda and Lisbon have of the usefulness of financial information in decision-making. For this purpose, we prepared a comparative case study and used a questionnaire as the method of data collection. The study revealed that respondents from both countries under study recognize the importance of financial information for decision making in business context. However, in Portugal, the level of perception appears to be higher.