"Financial literacy measured by three factors: academic knowledge of accounts and finance, accounting training program and computer awareness is considered as the independent variable, while performance and success of SMEs measured by the profitability of the firms are taken as the dependent variable." (Guliyeva, 2020)

Based on the above statement, an organization for which I worked that demonstrated poor financial practices will have to be my former job at a surgery center. This was a privately owned center specializing in pain treatments, spinal surgery as well as other same-day procedures referred by their doctors from the main hospital. The reason I say this organization exhibited poor financial practices was that the entire center was short staff in all of its departments. This shortage included nurses, anesthesiologists, surgical techs, sterile processing techs, and janitors. On occasion, they will book more cases with less staff overworking everyone on the team and later calling on per-diem staff to come in on short notice. Being called upon onshort notice required them to be paid more whereas if these individuals were regular staff members more money would've been saved. On the other hand, the individual responsible for ordering supplies was always behind because she miss so many days of work harming inventory hence, having to pay more for overnight delivery on important items that were missing. These practices contributed to me thinking they were poor in financial decision-making at the facility.

The aspect of the organization that supported the organization's culture of poor financial practices will have to be managed. Management was the manager and human resource personnel excluding the CEO because he was barely at the center. The manager felt comfortable with her "staff" who were really friends she brought on after being hired. This worked in her favor when it came to staff complaining about the shortage of staff and not having the privilege to request days off due to this problem. The organization's financial management practices impacted its overall success greatly because more and more individuals get hired only to quit prior to their probation ending. A perfect example was a pregnant lady who experienced a medical emergency while at work in which she decided to go home. She was at the early stages of her pregnancy hence, she felt she needed the day to figure out what was going on with her. She confided in her manager but she refused to listen because it was a busy day and more staff was needed. The lady just left and sent in her resignation a week after knowing she would have been fired anyway.

Reference

Guliyeva, L. (2020).The Influence of Financial Accounting and Reporting on the Management of a Business Organization and A Case Study.Scholedge International Journal of Management & Development,7(9), 136-143. https://doi.org/10.19085/sijmd070901

• Ask a question about the organization your colleague described regarding the practices that reflected good or poor financial management or the culture that supported those practices.
• Relate your colleague's experience of how the culture supported the financial practices to an experience that you may have had or that you have researched.