Abstract
Despite women`s enormous involvement in economic activities through Small and Mediumscale Enterprises (SMEs), their progress has been relativelyslow and the macro environmental influences impeding women-led SMEs have been numerous. These impediments vary at different life cycle stages of the women-led business. As informed by life cycle stage theories of organizations, the formation, establishment, continuation and growth stage of businesses each have their own characteristics and needs, and thus entail specific resource requirements to be fulfilled for proceed to the next stage and/or for ensuring survival. This knowledge builds reasonable certainty that the issues undergone by womenled SMEs may vary and be distinctive at diverse life cycle stages of their businesses. The institutional environment of a country can impose restrictions or facilitate growth of entrepreneurship and small businesses. Even though evidence on issues related to formation, establishment, continuity and growth of women-led SMEs are not rare in the existing literature, the impact of the institutional environment at various business life cycle stages have not been well investigated. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the institutional forces that affect the businesses at diverse life cycle stages of women-led SMEs in developing economies. Drawing from the institutional theory, the present study examines the institutional environmental forces influencing women-led SMEs at different stages of the business life cycles. It develops several propositions, building relationships among three institutional forces and different life cycles stages passed by women-led SMEs. It examines the effects of regulatory, normative and cognitive dimensions of the institutional environment at developing economy contexts. Based on the previous research findings, it encapsulates how apex level environmental conditions of under-developed institutional environments affect the life course of grass-root level women-led SMEs. Concurrently, the findings shed light on which dimension(s) of the institutional environment are most significant at a distinctive stage of women-led SME.
Highlights
Women's involvement in economic activities through Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) has been enormous, especially in developing economies, despite their invisibility in reports either in numbers or in values
This study extends our understanding of institutional environmental level barriers vis-à-vis diverse life cycle stages of womenled SMEs
4.1 Conclusion This study iterates three-fold discernments in developing its thesis. It contends that the institutional differences recognized at contextual levels provide a rich source of evidence for decision-making bodies in such contexts. It emphasizes that scholarly attention focused on institutional environment and its impact on SMEs is inadequate if policy makers are not informed sufficiently the particular stage of business life cycles that they need to interfere
Summary
Women's involvement in economic activities through Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) has been enormous, especially in developing economies, despite their invisibility in reports either in numbers or in values. As informed by life cycle stage theories of organizations, the formation, establishment, and growth stage of businesses each has its own characteristics and needs, and entail specific resource requirements to be fulfilledbefore proceeding to the stage and/or for ensuring survival (e.g., Chandler, 1962; Quinn & Cameron, 1983) This knowledge builds reasonable certainty that the issues undergone by women-led SMEs may vary and be distinctive at diverse life cycle stages of their businesses. It presents an overview of institutional environment, with the focus oninstitutional environment in the context of business enterprises, and institutional environmental dimensions as used in this study It reviews the characteristics of life cycle stages of SMEs as evidenced in theory and literature. It discusses, in light of existing knowledge, the effects of institutional environment on life cycle stages of women-led SMEs at their formation, establishment and growth stages In this attempt, it develops four propositions, which presents as an outcome of the study. It concludes by highlighting the implications drawn in the study and presenting directions for empirical research
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