Empowerment sustainability perspectives for Bahraini women as entrepreneurs

Abstract

The key objectives of this study were to investigate the factors that empower women entrepreneurs in the Kingdom of Bahrain and to measure the impacts of such factors on their business development and growth. The four main factors covered in this study were gender equality, quality education, sociocultural, and policies. The quantitative method was adopted to obtain the results of a structured survey distributed among 449 women entrepreneurs in the Kingdom of Bahrain registered in the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. A simple random sampling approach was used. This study examined the empowerment perspectives of Bahraini women as entrepreneurs. Hypotheses were developed and tested using statistical tests to significantly identify the impacts of the factors on women entrepreneurs' participation in the country's business activities. The quantitative results of the study showed the importance of empowering women entrepreneurs in business activities in the Kingdom of Bahrain, which leads to their development and the country's economic growth. The findings confirmed the existence and significant impact of three factors, which are quality education, sociocultural, and policies, that empower and support women to start businesses in the Kingdom of Bahrain. No significant effect of the gender equality factor was distinguished. Empowerment and institutional theories were found to be relevant to the context of empowering women as entrepreneurs. The research provided recommendations, such as reinforcing policies that empower entrepreneurs, to enhance the empowerment of women entrepreneurship in the Kingdom of Bahrain.