From Tradition to Transformation: The Social Entrepreneurial Journey of Japanese Women

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to understand how Japanese women become social entrepreneurs. The challenges in fostering women’s entrepreneurship include socio-cultural traditional views on women’s roles and expectations and insufficient support systems. Despite such challenges, the rise of Japanese women as social entrepreneurs has been observed in recent years as a unique response to natural disasters and crisis situations, such as the Tohoku earthquake in 2011 and the Kumamoto earthquake in 2016. Women felt the need to make positive changes and assist their country to build back. However, limited research exists that examines Japanese women social entrepreneurs’ development throughout their lives. Women social entrepreneurs may have gone through critically reflective moments through significant life events, which can eventually change the course of their professional paths. The methods of the study include in-depth, individual interviews with five women entrepreneurs, field observations, and a review of documents, including women’s organization websites, news articles, and social media. These findings provide both practical and scholarly insights that can be useful for the field of adult education and human resource development and women’s studies, highlighting how women maneuver challenging conditions, and how they effectively learn and transition from such challenges to become successful social entrepreneurs.