Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
6-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Dr. Twyla A. Willilams
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Dr. Derrick Tennial
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Dr. Jillian Skelton
Abstract
Entrepreneurship has remained an influential and unfulfilled goal for African Americans from the 1800s until now. Due to barriers in lending practices, increased business retention rates for African American business owners still need to be achieved. The lack of credit and lending resources hinders business growth and retention. Although Black-owned firms contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, they remain classified as underutilized entities that benefit the least, without adequate access to financial services, such as banking and lending opportunities. This study’s participants consisted of 12–15 African American business owners in central Texas, through a qualitative descriptive exploration of their experiences with and descriptions of lending practices and how they access community cultural wealth by utilizing resistant and navigational capital with barriers to lending practices. The completion of this study revealed that while African American business owners in central Texas face persistent barriers in lending, they encountered these challenges by drawing upon community cultural wealth, which encompasses strategic knowledge and community assets. The findings are summarized through four overarching themes that describe the transition from an exclusionary environment to a state of adaptive resilience. Keywords: African American business owners, capital access, community cultural wealth, entrepreneurship, lending practices
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Muhammad, Wannika R., "African American Business Owners' Descriptions of Experiences With Lending Practices" (2026). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1032.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/1032