Article

Analysis of Barriers to Women Entrepreneurship: The DEMATEL Approach

2017-09-01T00:00:00Z

Analysis of Barriers to Women Entrepreneurship: The DEMATEL Approach Raghuvanshi, Juhi; Agrawal, Rajat; Ghosh, P. K. Barriers to women entrepreneurship are numerous but they are all treated with equal importance in prior research. We believe prioritisation will advance our understanding further. Hence, we start by identifying barriers from earlier studies and explore possible causality among them. A framework based on cause and effect relationship among barriers is proposed. Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique was used to establish this causality. Our analysis identifies five of the 14 barriers as causal. They are as follows: lack of education, experience and training opportunities; spatial mobility and lack of family support; lack of institutional support; lack of entrepreneurial management; and problem in acquiring financial resources. Women entrepreneurs, scholars and policymakers will gain greater understanding through this causal framework of barriers. Knowledge and containment of these barriers will help in fostering a more conducive environment for enabling more women to attempt entrepreneurship.

Family Support and Performance of Women owned Enterprises: The Mediating Effect of Family-to-Work Enrichment

2017-09-01T00:00:00Z

Family Support and Performance of Women owned Enterprises: The Mediating Effect of Family-to-Work Enrichment Neneh, Brownhilder Ngek The objective of this article was to examine the mediating role of familyto-work enrichment (FWE) on the relationship between family support and the performance of women-owned businesses. Empirical data from 251 women entrepreneurs in South Africa were used to assess the postulated relationship. The findings showed that all three examined types of family support (i.e., emotional, instrumental and financial family support) were positively associated with firm performance. Additionally, affective FWE mediated the relationship between emotional support and performance, while instrumental FWE mediated the association between instrumental family support and performance. The study culminates with a discussion of the implications of the study, by emphasising the need for the current system to take into account the distinctive needs and challenges of women entrepreneurs and provide the necessary support and environment to foster their growth and prosperity.

Psychological Factors that Influences Entrepreneurial Intention among Women in Nigeria: A Study Based in South East Nigeria

2017-09-01T00:00:00Z

Psychological Factors that Influences Entrepreneurial Intention among Women in Nigeria: A Study Based in South East Nigeria Isiwu, Prisca I.; Onwuka, Ifeanyi The study examined psychological factors that influence women entrepreneurial intention in Nigeria. One hundred and seventeen (117) women were drawn within Enugu metropolis using purposive random sampling technique. Their ages ranged between 18 and 50 years, with a mean age of 22.07. Cross-sectional design was adopted. Job involvement (JI), self-efficacy, goal orientation and entrepreneurial intention scales were instruments used for data collection. Three hypotheses were tested. Step-wise multiple regressions were the main statistics used for data analysis. Results of the regression analysis showed that among the studied variables, only self-efficacy was a significant predictor of women participation in entrepreneurship (p < 0.01). The three dimensions of goal orientation, learning goal orientation, prove (performance-prove) orientation, and avoid (performance-avoid) orientation, were not significant predictors of women participation in entrepreneurship. Similarly, JI did not also significantly predict women participation in entrepreneurship. A good practical implication of the finding of this study is that women who develop high self-efficacy are more likely to be entrepreneurs and that strategies to build high self-efficacy among women are needed to make more women become entrepreneurs in order to enhance national/grass-root development. Limitations were made, while suggestions for further studies were stated.

Informal Entrepreneurship and Past Experience in an Emerging Economy

2017-09-01T00:00:00Z

Informal Entrepreneurship and Past Experience in an Emerging Economy Hallam, Cory R. A.; Zanella, Gianluca Informal economies account for up to 70 per cent of GDP in developing countries, but few studies have explored informal entrepreneurship. To fill this gap, an exploratory study involving 855 university students in an emerging economy applies the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to study the cognitive process of informal entrepreneurship. The effect of past experience (PE) and necessity entrepreneurship on the intention to start a business is also explored. Our findings provide evidence that the decision to start a business in the informal economy reinforces the effect of subjective norms on entrepreneurial intentions (EIs). Implications for education programmes and for theory are discussed.