PhD

The microfinance industry can reach the poor in large scale and yet attain profitability. To maintain these two objectives which is known as double bottom line, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have to find the right balance between financial sustainability and social performance. However, there have been considerable debates on whether the goals of the double bottom line have been compromised. It is argued that to attain profitability, MFIs have allegedly shifted away from its mandate of serving the poorest borrowers in pursuit of financial sustainability. This phenomenon is described as "mission drift" ...

Every human needs a good and quality life. A quality living is essential to ensure positive physical, mental as well as spiritual development in an individual. This balanced individual will form a stable family unit and later on contribute to a progressive community in a bigger social entity. A comfortable life is usually challenged by indispensable social ill called poverty. It is a global phenomenon that has challenged the economic, social and political landscape of every society in the world including Malaysia ...

All the human beings in this world deserve to have a better quality of life. In order to achieve the noble notion, the chronic social disease called poverty must be expelled. It is a multidimensional phenomenon that has defied the social, economic and political landscape of every nation and society in various parts of the world. Thus, there is an urgent need to combat poverty and empowering the poor in order to develop both the physical and social well-being as well as to enhance the quality life of the people. One of the effective and powerful tools to combat poverty is by providing microfinance access to the poor ...

In the last three decades, the microfinance market has continued to grow, from 13 million clients in 1997 to 98 million in 2009 and 139.9 million in 2018. As microfinance grows, a transformational change in microfinance in microfinance has taken place. Prior to the 1990s, microfinance worked more as microcredit for poverty alleviation and development instruments which were still subsidized. But today microfinance has turned into a more complex ecosystem with more varied market participants and approaches. Will these microfinance institutions be sustainable in providing financial and social services now and in the future? What are the key variables that play an important role in the sustainability of the MFIs? This study is to help find the answers to these questions using a multi-criteria decision-making framework and a dynamic parametric analysis. This study aims to measure the sustainability of microfinance institutions in a multi-dimensional manner so that the achievement of its mission - the triple bottom line - can be measured and evaluated. This study also examines MFI in OIC member countries considering that OIC is a group of countries with the the second largest number of members after the United Nations. Investigating the MFIs from 111 countries worldwide from 2003 to 2019, this study utilizes the TOPSIS and VIKOR frameworks as the two multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches that have been proven efficient, consistent, and compatible with the decision problem on measuring MFI's sustainability performance. This study utilized a framework of governance approach and institutional theory to predict the key variables of MFI's sustainability performance through a dynamic parametric method, namely generalized method of moment, known as GMM.