Abstract
The study showcases a business value proposition to policy makers for the adoption of a business paradigm involving the infusion of knowledge management practices, strategic thinking and government policy intervention for divapreneurship development in Zimbabwe. The significance of knowledge management (KM) in women entrepreneurial development arises from the fact that, KM is considered as one of the most effective strategic tools for enterprise survival (Kim and Koh, 2011). The study also investigated the antecedents of bringing about the divatude (positive attitude) in women, as a new way of addressing the impediments to the development of women so that they could be united, driven, inspired, action oriented and victorious ensuring that divapreneurship development becomes a reality in Zimbabwe (Bbenkele, 2013). The mixed method research paradigm was adopted with both quantitative and qualitative data integrated in data collection. Consequently, basing on a purposive sample of 558 structured questionnaires, and focus group discussions, data was collected in line with the sequential explanatory approach. The study was carried out in Bulawayo and Harare Metropolitan Provinces, and Matabeleland North Provinces in Zimbabwe. The study recommended a ten factor framework for divapreneurship development involving universities as the nerve centre, in unrolling entrepreneurial education and training working in collaboration with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development.
Highlights
The business world has increasingly become competitive, creativity and innovativeness are critical, more so in the Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector
The results showed that the coefficient of determination r2 is 59%, meaning that the three independent variables knowledge strategy, knowledge sharing and continuous learning explains 59% of the total variability on the enterprise development. 41% of variability might be due to multi-collinearity between variables and other variables not investigated in this study
The results show that none of the five knowledge management practices (KM) and Enterprise development statistically vary according to age categories of the age of the women entrepreneur
Summary
The business world has increasingly become competitive, creativity and innovativeness are critical, more so in the Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector. The embracement of knowledge strategies through combining knowledge management (KM) practices and strategic management have become imperative for enterprise development. There have been success stories from various sectors that have adopted KM processes, yet there is little evidence in literature showing the extent to which women entrepreneurs have adopted KM strategies for enhancing decision making, collaboration and innovation. Bbenkele (2013) made an observation that it is important to develop the positive attitude in women, through equipping them with the ‘divatude.’ This divatude would ensure that women entrepreneurs are ‘united, driven, inspired, victorious, focussed and action oriented,’ for business success. The embracement of the divatude would lead to an emergence of thriving divapreneurship ventures in Zimbabwe (Bbenkele, 2013)
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