Does capital structure affect the differences in the financial performance of small enterprises?

Capital structure refers to the combination of debt and equity that the company uses to finance overall operations and growth. One of the most common problems of small enterprises is difficult access to various sources of financing, which is certainly reflected in their capital structure. Deciding on capital structure is one of the most important activities in the company, given that it significantly determines the performance of the company, but also the competitiveness and sustainability of the business. The aim of the study was to investigate whether there is a significant difference in financial performance between enterprises belonging to different leverage levels. Financial leverage was calculated by dividing total debts to total assets and based on leverage the companies are divided into 3 groups. Using ANOVA analysis, we found that the only difference in financial performance indicators was observed with NPM (but with a small effect size: eta square = 0.0470), whereas no statistically significant difference was observed between the groups in the ROE and ROA indicators.