A Systematic Review of the Field of Debt Financing

The provision of debt finance has a long history that continues to be transformed as technology develops, keeping it an all-time viable and popular option for business owners. Financing through debts has asserted itself over time as an important source of capital and sustenance funds for both new and existing ventures as, compared to equity financing (selling the shares or ownership interests of a business to raise capital), debt financing lowers the probability of leaking value-creating intellectual property to competition and does not require giving up ownership or control. Considering the significance of debt financing to business and invariably countries, as well the fact that there are problems that need to be curbed for debt financing to be a good rather a bad phenomenon, it is necessary that the field of debt financing be thoroughly explored so as to make informed decisions. This study thus systematically reviews existing literature on the field of debt financing with a view to identify gaps and recommend areas for future research in the field. The Systematic Quantitative Assessment Technique (SQAT), introduced by Pickering and Byrne (2013), was used to examine trends and gaps in the time dispersions, geographical distributions, article types, research methodologies, themes of focus, and theories of 75 gotten from 6 high quality academic databases. Most of the articles reviewed were empirical in nature, utilizing mainly panel data analysis for collection of data. Furthermore, the role of government and effect of corruption were least discussed. Agency, Pecking-order and Trade-off theories were predominant. The findings thus provide researchers, prospective and existing, with a deep view into the discourse on Debt Financing, exposing researchable gaps