Despite the available potentials for sustainable growth and development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) especially in developing economies, poor management of working capital has continued to deny most SMEs the optimum performance needed to annex the inherent potentials in the business. The study therefore seeks to investigate the relationship between management of working capital and Performance of small and medium enterprises; assess various sources of financing working capital; evaluate working capital management and identify problems associated with the management of working capital of SMEs in Akure, Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive survey with primary source of data collection through a well-structured questionnaire, to elicit information from randomly selected respondents. Both the descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the analysis. The study discovered a significant and positive relationship between working capital and performance of SMEs; identified bank loan, loan from family members and friends, and personal savings as major sources of financing working capital. The study also revealed cash as mostly used of all other working capital components while ineffective management of cash appeared to be most worrisome of all the problems associated with working capital management in the study area. The study concluded that effective working capital management ensures that SMEs have enough funds for day to day running of the business, which suggests consideration for other sources of financing working capital such as cooperative societies among others, for optimum performance needed by SMEs to annex the potentials for sustainable growth and development.
Keywords: Akure-Nigeria, Management, Performance, Relationship, SMEs, Working capital.
