CHALLENGES IN LEARNING FOR COMPANY’S FINANCIAL VIABILITY ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT

. Many entrepreneurs in Latvia are limited in choice of tools for the improvement of their financial literacy. Therefore the training course “Financial literacy of entrepreneurs in the field of financial viability management” was elaborated and tested with the aim to improve the course and reveal the challenges facing different categories of learners. The research was formative as it combined the promotion of learners and trainers’ competencies and behaviours with the research process throughout all the five training cycles. The research methods applied were chosen based on the inner logics and aims of the teaching and learning processes: videorecording of learners’ activities and analysis of the videomaterials; analysis of the learners’ work and reflections. Out of the identified sixteen challenges faced by learners, three were especially crucial and caused further difficulties in coping with different tasks on assessment and management of company’s financial viability. It was concluded that there may be three categories of learners whose training should be organised in different modes taking into account the level of their preparedness in accountancy, tax accounting and financial analysis.


Introduction
The problem of low financial viability of Latvian companies is getting more and more serious. During the last 3 years the amount of liabilities of Latvian companies exceeds equity in average 200%, increasing the risk of bankruptcy (The Central Statistical… 2014). The potential for sustainable development of modern commercial enterprises in a com petitive environment depends on employees and managers' ability to boost the level of financial viability. Improvement of financial literacy of current and future entrepreneurs, managers and other employees is becoming an indispensa ble condition for objective evaluation and control of values of financial viability indicators, maintaining sufficient level of financial viability, solvency and low probability of ban kruptcy of companies.
Since 2014 the National Strategy for Financial Literacy has been implemented in Latvia. One of its goals is to pro vide financial sustainability and development of the society efficiency of usage of human resources and physical capital, as well as external factors. The quality of human resour ces of Latvian companies is evaluated by 5.5-5.8 points (of maximum 7). Trainings are the main suggestion for improving the quality of human resources, but only 53% of entrepreneurs invest in education of their employees. Business owners and managers' education and experience play a crucial role in business vitality. However only 50% of entrepreneurs have bachelor's degrees, 22% -master's degrees, only 42% had experience before their own busi ness startup (Nordea Bank 2011).
To assure Latvian business vitality via improvement of citizens' financial literacy, a training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs in the field of financial viability management" was elaborated based on N. Koleda's PhD research "Theoretical and practical solutions of a compa ny's financial viability as the basis for sustainable develo pment" (Koleda 2011). The pilot testing of the course was conducted within the project "Enhancing Latvian Citizens' Securitability through Development of the Financial Literacy", Nr. 394/2012. The pilot testing of the course was conducted with 2 groups of learners -students and repre sentatives of business sector from January to July 2014.
The aim of the research was to reveal the challenges fa cing different categories of learners for improving the course and the teaching and learning methodology for financial viability assessment and management.

The concept of financial viability
The scientificmethodological course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs in the field of financial viability manage ment" is based on the concept of financial viability, which is regarded to be a complex phenomenon characterized as a level of usage of financial and all other resources possessed by a company. Financial viability is an economic condition of a company that creates prerequisites for a stable favoura ble income to expenditure ratio, efficient use of resources, and steady reproduction process under the conditions of active influence of internal and external factors (Zhevak 2006). Scientific literature on financial management mainly focuses on financial viability indicators but its concept is not unanimous as there is no a common platform for its comprehension and definition.
The conception of financial viability used in scientific literature can be systemized in four groups, which relate financial viability to: 1. Company's solvency and results of its activity achie ved by means of the efficient use and distribution of financial resources (e. g. Sheshukova Gukalova, Fedotova 2009, and others); 4. Ability of an entity to continue to achieve its ope rating objectives and fulfil its mission over the long term (Ashley, Faulk 2010;Loan Finance dictionary 2009;Jørgensen et. al. 2011). Morphologic and lexicographic analysis of definitions of the concept of "financial viability" which was conducted in the course of N. Koleda's PhD research, revealed that financial viability is such distribution and use of financial resources which allows to sustain the state of a company's equilibrium in a shortterm period and provides sustain able development of a company over a longterm period (Koleda 2011).
This definition of financial viability makes the basis for approaches to its assessment and management of financial viability presented within the training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs' within management of financial viability".

Assessment and management of company's financial viability
Assessment of the level of company's financial viability in most sources of scientific literature is mainly limited to the analysis of discrete quantitative and qualitative financial indicators without a complex approach to the process of assessment.
The qualitative content analysis of financial and eco nomic literature showed that most frequently used indica tors are: debt to equity ratio; working capital financed by owner's equity; solvency ratio; sustainability ratio (Lace, Koleda 2010). It was revealed that there is no publicly avai lable information about any kind of common approach to the analysis of financial viability of the companies, which belong to the nonfinancial sector.
Nevertheless, there is a special methodology elaborated by International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the analysis of financial viability of the financial sector; it also provides a methodology for the analysis of as well nonfinancial sector companies.
The indicators included in the IMF methodology for analysing financial viability of the nonfinance sector com panies are the following: debt to equity ratio, profitability of equity, profitability of assets and business profitability, interest coverage ratio, currency positions, the number of claims for relief from creditors (IMF 2006).
These indicators were tried for the assessment of financi al viability of service companies in Riga region, which sho wed that the IMF methodology can be used for describing the general tendencies of financial viability of companies.
Nevertheless there are certain limitations for the application of the IMF methodology on microlevel: 1. the indicators can be analysed only in dynamics; 2. the methodology doesn't provide a mechanism for complex and systematic evaluation of financial via bility; 3. the methodology does not imply factor analysis and sensitive analysis of certain indicators which make the essential part of the process of managing finan cial viability (Lace, Koleda 2012). The tools for the elimination of these limitations were elaborated and tried within N. Koleda's PhD research with the further integration into the training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs in the field of financial viability management" (Koleda et al. 2013).

Training tools applied within the training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs in the field of financial viability management"
Training materials and trainers' manuals are mainly aimed at the development of skills related to personal earning, spending, budgeting and borrowing (International Labour Organization 2008; Skolas vārds 2014). Several initiatives have been supported by the Latvian government, finan cial and education institutions for promoting consumers financial literacy in Latvia. Some of these projects focus on financial literacy of: householders (The University of Latvia 2013); young people (The University of Latvia 2012); children (Skolas vārds 2014); scholars (Diena 2011); teachers of secondary and higher education ins titutions (Financial and Capital… 2013). However there remains little support to encourage and advance financial literacy of the entrepreneurs and small business owners, despite knowledge in management is considered to be one of the key success factors for sustainable development of companies (Wise 2013;Hoegl et al. 2003). When entre preneurs start a business because they have an interest in a particular area and have related technical skills but they do not have knowledge in finances, they often have to rely on external advisors to provide offline manage ment advice and review periodic financial results on a historical basis. That threatens the quality and timeliness of successful performance of companies and various kinds of decisionmaking activities of entrepreneurs (Society of Management Accountants of Canada 2014; Oseifuah 2010). This could mean that just a small percentage of entrepreneurs know exactly what they should know or how they should learn to become successful (Hisrich 2010;Oseifuah 2010).
Entrepreneurs of Latvia are limited in choice of tools for the improvement of their financial literacy; neither trainers have appropriate methodologies for providing effective trai ning courses to learners from business area.
The experimental design of the training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs' in the field of finan cial viability" is based on the StraussHowe's generation theory. Strauss and Howe consider a social generation as the aggregate of all people of one phase of life: childhood, young adulthood, midlife, and old age. They characterize generations by: 1. sharing an age location in history -historical events and social trends while occupying the same phase of life; 2. certain beliefs and behaviours; 3. a sense of common perceived membership in that generation (Strauss, Howe 1992). This theory presents the impact of political, economic, social, technological events on characteristics and peculia rities of generations.
The experimental design of the training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs' in the field of financi al viability" is supposed for training learners born between early 1980s and 2000s who are called Y generation (Horovitz 2012). The elaboration of teaching and learning methodolo gies suitable for Y generation is becoming a vital question of discussions in contemporary business and education fields.
Based on considerable number of researches and opi nions of human resource experts, trainers and managers, co aching is an effective way to teach and manage Y generation (Valcour 2013;Edwards 2013;Helland 2013;Gibson 2013). Coaching empowers learning engagement which leads to selfrealization and selfactualization by coachees (Hahn 2008). Coaching unlocks learners' potential to maximize their own performance. It helps coaches to learn rather than teach them (Whitmore 2010). Coaching motivates learners for success, helps them realize their potential, promotes their thinking, skills, level of confidence, positive attitude to learning and proactive vision of life situations. The coach is in continuous dialogue with coachees provoking them to think actively and decide what to their mind they should do in different business cases; that promotes their analytical and critical thinking, problem solving skills and unders tanding the essence of concepts and processes. The coach is an expert in listening and asking meaningful questions, guiding the process to enable the coachees to disclose their inner resources (University College London 2013).
Therefore coaching is used as the main training tool in the suggested course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs' in the field of financial viability".
Experimental design of the course supposes a kind of learning process which is adjusted to such characteristics of Ygeneration as: selfconfidence, laziness, joyfulness, instant need of acknowledgement and reflection; creativi ty, freethinking, computer literacy, poor selfcontrol; high intellectual expectation, individualism, poorly communi cation skills, short attention span, impossibility to absorb large and complex information, hyperactivity (Isaeva 2012;Reilly 2012;EckleberryHunt, Tucciarone 2011;United Nations… 2013).
The course can be easily adjusted to learners' needs and peculiarities by: video recording and analysing the training process, arranging specific individual and group tasks, and playing business related games elaborated by N. Koleda ba sed the on the requirements of content of the study topic.
The course is applicable for training as well of so called X generation (born between the mid1960s and the ear ly 1980s) (Waterworth 2013) as this generation is rather flexible to changes and is able and open to lifelong learning (Wilson, Gerber 2008). Thus, the course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs' in the field of financial viability" is pro grammed for training both X and Y generations as it meets all their needs and integrates complex approaches.

Experimental design of the training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs in the field of financial viability management"
The experimental design of training within this course was tested with two groups of learners: 1. Students from Finance Engineering Program who will be entrepreneurs or employees involved in bu siness and affect financial solutions; 2. Five employees from three companies.
The aim of the training process was to teach students the principles and tools of financial viability assessment and management as well as develop their skills in ap plying these tools in business cases.
The experimental design presents the topics, aims, objectives and structure of the course, as well as outcomes for learners and the trainer.
The experimental design of the training course con sists of five training cycles. The main body of the acti vities and content of each cycle was realised during one seminar. However the finalisation of each previous cycle was conducted in the beginning of the following semi nar in order to revise the material learnt and promote deeper understanding by learners thus linking the cycles to each other.
The structure of one cycle is shown in Figure 1. While studying the course, learners had to pass through five training cycles -one cycle during one se minar; the characteristics of each of them are shown in Table 1.
While testing the experimental design of the training course, challenges facing different categories of learners were revealed. This led to the categorisation of learners; that plays a crucial role in improving training materials, organising the study process and providing high outco mes while studying financial viability assessment and management.

Activities of learners
* performance of individual tasks; * participation in group tasks; * presentation of results of performing tasks; * participation in business related games.

Activities of learners
* learning of the new topic and discussion of issues occurred.

Activities of learners
* performance of individual tasks; * participation in group tasks; * presentation of the performance of tasks; * playing business related games; * discussion on the topic.

Activities of the trainer
* arrangement of individual and group tasks; * guiding the process of learners' thinking and performance of tasks; * video recording of presentations.   terminology. -To suggest the preparation of a report on financial viability assessment and management principles and schemes used in companies: 1) where learners work; or 2) where they could be used in learners' opinion. -To analyse the consistency between financial viability concept and information presented in the reports. -To review the examples of assessment of financial viability by some other companies.

Activities of learners
-To share experience and understanding of the concept of financial viability and its assessment and management. -To understand the concept of financial viability and relevant terminology. -To prepare a report on financial viability assessment and management principles and schemes used in companies: 1) where they work; or 2) where these principles and schemes could be used.

The approach to assessment and management of company's financial viability elaborated by the authors
In order to assess company's financial viability in the course of training, the authors based on the concept of zones and sufficiency level of financial viability. In order to assess company's financial viability in the course of training, the authors based on the concept of zones and sufficiency level of financial viability. Distribution of the zones of financial viability for the indicators, which have direct intercon nection with the level of financial viability, is presented below (Fig. 2). This interconnection is characterised by positive influence of increase of the numerical value of an indicator in a shortterm period on the level of company's financial viability. For those indicators, whose growth decreases the level of financial viability, the distribution of the zones of financial viability among the numerical values is opposite.
In order to calculate the level of sufficiency of financial viability, the following additional concepts are suggested: 1) "lower margin" -a value of an indicator at which the level of financial viability is the lowest, but permissible for business activity without the risk of bankruptcy; 2)"upper margin" -a value of an indicator at which the level of finan cial viability is the highest; however the further improve ment of the value of financial viability indicator may upset the equilibrium condition of the company (Lace, Koleda 2011). The level of sufficiency of an indicator of financial viability is determined by the ratio of its actual value to the value of its lower margin. If the actual value of an indicator is equal to its lower margin, the level of financial viability of the company is 100% sufficient concerning that indicator. In the case when the actual value of an indicator is lower than its lower margin, the company runs the risk of loss of financial viability and bankruptcy. The authors suggest calculating the level of sufficiency of indicators in the follo wing way: for an indicator, which has direct interconnection with the level of financial viability, the level of its sufficiency is determined as (1): where: I LS -average level of sufficiency of indicator I, %; NV I -actual numerical value of indicator I; LM I -numerical value of lower margin of indicator I. The level of sufficiency of an indicator, whose growth decreases the level of financial viability, is determined as a ratio of the values of its lower margin to its actual nume rical value. Determination of the level of sufficiency of a company's financial viability is one of the most important economic issues since insufficient financial viability may result in the lack of development funds in the company, its insolvency and bankruptcy. Whereas surplus viability im pedes a company's development burdening it with excessive stocks and reserves. The management of financial viability should be oriented to the achievement of such a level of financial viability which is adequate for providing compa ny's sustainable development. Meanwhile the algorithm of financial viability management should be based on: 1) factor analysis of financial viability indicators, 2) sensitivity ana lysis of financial viability indicators. The authors suggest conducting sensitivity analysis applying the coefficient of elasticity (2): where: LC -level of change of tempo of growth for average numerical value of factor I j x which provides 100% suffici ency of indicator I.
The suggested approach to assessment and management of financial viability delivered in the training course suppo ses the algorithm depicted in Figure 3. In order to realize this algorithm of assessment and ma nagement of company's financial viability, it is vital to take into consideration that: -in an efficient way a company is able to influence only the internal factors; -a company should firstly optimize the values of those indicators of financial viability whose sufficiency level is lower than 100%. Such optimization is possible by changing the values of those factors in relation to which the given indicators are most sensitive; -in case when the values of all indicators of financial viability are sufficient, the company is considered fi nancially viable. However the company can support and increase on the level of its financial viability by means of improving the indicators whose sufficiency is the lowest.

Results of research
The authors of the paper have organised the experimental training course "Financial literacy of entrepreneurs in the field of financial viability management" for: 1. Testing that in work with university students and business people; 2. Fulfilling the course; 3. Improving teaching and learning methodology for financial viability assessment and management; 4. Finding out the challenges which different catego ries of learners face; and based on them categorising learners (see Table 2). In the course of trainings the learners were categorised into three groups -those who have: 1. Neither experience in accountancy nor much awa reness of it; 2. Theoretical knowledge in accountancy, but lack skills in it; 3. Both theoretical knowledge and working experience in accountancy (see Table 2). The most crucial challenges which learners had before the explanations given by the trainer concerned the princi ples of accounting, financial terminology and tax accoun ting. In logical chain these weaknesses caused failure in comprehending the impact of business activities on finan cial statement. Only 6% of learners coped with this task.
As a result learners had to overcome several causally in terconnected difficulties in: adjusting financial statements; understanding essence and role of financial ratios; applying preventive approach to assessment and management of fi nancial viability and comprehending and managing com pany's financial viability from systemic perspective.

Conclusions
The exploration of the challenges in learning for company's financial viability assessment and management showed that there may be three categories of learners whose training should be organised in different modes taking into account the level of their preparedness in accountancy, tax accoun ting and financial analysis.
The learners who have neither experience in accoun tancy nor much awareness of it and the ones who have theoretical knowledge in accountancy but lack skills in it, should be offered preliminary preparative courses for overcoming the gap in knowledge and skills. Only after it the three categories of learners can be taught in a joint study environment. Such an organisation of trainings will promote not only learners' competence in assessment and management of company's financial viability but as well motivate them to be more active in their studies, shape positive attitude and appropriate behaviours in solving financing problems in company's life based on deeper and more qualitative understanding.
The analysis of challenges which learners faced in the training process (Table 2) can serve as an appropriate ground for the improvement of study materials, as well as teaching and learning methodologies on company's finan cial viability assessment and management.