Entrepreneurs in Making: A Study of Tribal Women's Lived Realities and Past Experiences

Abstract

An encounter with the scheme of Van Dhan Yojana piqued the authors’ interest in learning more about the factors that contribute towards the development of entrepreneurship competencies among the tribal women. Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana is a Government of India project that aims to create alternate livelihood for tribal population by developing community enterprises and transforming forest gatherers into entrepreneurs. We conducted a qualitative study amongst tribal women to evaluate entrepreneurial competencies among them as a result of their past experiences, personal and professional. Our findings indicate that past experiences of these women largely correspond to conceptual and relationship competencies, one of the four categories listed by Mitchelmore and Rowley (2013), while showing traces of other competency categories. Further, we argue that amongst the tribal women establishing community enterprises, Mitchelmore and Rowley’s (2013) conceptual and relational competencies act as threshold or baseline competencies (Bird, 1995). Other competencies are developed during training and the course of enterprise operation and growth.