A Systematic Literature Review on Women Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies While Reflecting Specifically on SAARC Countries

Abstract

Women entrepreneurship is the emerging phenomenon of twenty-first century. Women are working hard to not raise their living standard but also support their families. A lot of work has been done in developed countries regarding women entrepreneurship. It is necessary to find out what are the issues women must face in emerging economies. The purpose of this study is to review the literature on women entrepreneurship in emerging economies especially SAARC countries in last 23 years. This study will also critique the extant body of women entrepreneurship. With the help of identified aggregate dimensions, future studies will be shaped. A systematic literature review (SLR) has been undertaken across 23 journals present on the database SCOPUS. The initial search shows a total of 180 articles on the topic of interest. After refining the articles, a total of 76 articles have been selected to perform SLR. GIOIA methodology has been used to analyze the data of 76 articles. First-order concepts were collected directly from the articles. Second-order themes have been shaped on the basis of first-order concepts. Hence, aggregate dimensions have been made to summarize and contextualize the whole analysis. Separate analysis has been done on emerging economies and for the SAARC countries. Within the 76 articles of emerging economies, articles were separated based on the countries of SAARC Region. A total of 30 articles were obtained. Analysis has been done to study the context of South Asia in particular. This SLR finds that every region has its own social and cultural challenges affecting differently to women entrepreneurs. The dynamics of developing countries are very different from developed countries. The key elements of the future research implications of this study call for more qualitative and quantitative research. It will help to provide more insights a holistic view of the real stories and will help to understand the phenomena better. This paper presents the SLR of women entrepreneurship in emerging economies in focus to SAARC countries. This paper only describes, analyzes and critiques the existing literature found on a database SCOPUS. It also highlights the areas where there is a huge gap in literature. Hence the topic of interest has been established as worthy investigation in its own right. In the end, SLR provides future research directions in studying the phenomena of women entrepreneurship in emerging economies.