An Integrated Model to Prioritize the Strategies for Women Entrepreneurship Development to Overcome Its Barriers: Case of Indian MSMEs

Abstract

Women entrepreneurs play a vital role in strengthening the economic growth and social development of the country. The government of India has also emphasized women's entrepreneurship (WE) development in the country's micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), but the presence of external and internal hurdles makes it difficult and lowers the success rate. Most importantly, to increase WE development in India, robust and adaptable strategies are required to unlock these barriers. This article presents an integrated decision framework to accelerate WE development in Indian MSMEs. The article utilized an integrated model based on fuzzy AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS to prioritize the strategies for WE development to overcome these barriers. The results of the analysis identified that individual–familial barriers, infrastructure barriers, and policy and legal barriers are the top three critical categories of the barriers that constrain WE development in India. And strategy S17, i.e., government support and motivation for weaker parts, is the most influential strategy in overcoming these barriers, whereas strategy S18, i.e., the ability to innovate and be creative, is ranked last. The findings of the article could be used by policymakers, strategists, and relevant stakeholders to reduce WE development barriers and encourage WE development culture in a growing number of MSME businesses.