Relevance of social capital in womens business performance in Bangladesh

Ks Farid,L Mozumdar,Pk Sarma

doi:10.3329/jbau.v15i1.33533

Relevance of social capital in womens business performance in Bangladesh

Ks Farid, L Mozumdar + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3329/jbau.v15i1.33533

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Abstract

Social capital has been projected as a key resource in entrepreneurial success. While the association between successful business activity by rural women and their ability in building social capital is often seen as a pathway of poverty reduction, a thorough understanding of the relevance of social capital in womens business performance could have crucial insights into ways for alleviating rural poverty in developing countries. Nonetheless, the relevance of social capital in womens business performance has hardly studied in the specific context of Bangladesh. The present review is undertaken to fill this information gap. Social capital has positive impact on gaining legitimacy, building mutual trust and co-operation in womens business. Besides, women enterprises with enhanced social capital are found to possess better access to other forms of capital. The review shows the importance of external actors such as microfinance institutions in developing social capital of women enterprises in Bangladesh. Alongside microfinance, regulative factors such as different rules and regulations of the government can positively facilitate women entrepreneurship development in rural Bangladesh.J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 15(1): 87-94, January 2017

Highlights

Women in developing countries are more vulnerable to socio-economic shocks and experience high degree of poverty on a regular basis than men (Cleaver, 1998)
The definition and concept of social capital is highly debated, most literatures agree that social capital is the goodwill that is engendered by the fabric of social relations such as trust, norms, and networks that can be mobilized to improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions (Putnam,1993; Adler and Kwoon, 2002; Westlund and Bolton, 2003)
While gender is considered limitedly in the literature on social capital (Norton, 2001), its importance in uplifting rural women in case of developing countries is significant, as there is evidence that women are excluded from high ranking, powerful, male-oriented networks (Silvey and Elmhirst, 2003)

Summary

Introduction

Women in developing countries are more vulnerable to socio-economic shocks and experience high degree of poverty on a regular basis than men (Cleaver, 1998). While the strong association between successful business activity by rural women and their ability in building social capital is often seen as a pathway out of poverty (Maas et al.,2014), a thorough understanding of the relevance of social capital in women’s business performance could have crucial insights into ways for alleviating rural poverty in developing countries. The relevance of social capital in women’s business performance has been hardly studied in the specific context of Bangladesh. The objective of this review is to explore the relevance of social capital in women’s business performance in Bangladesh. We explore (1) how does social capital impact women’s business performance in Bangladesh? We explore (1) how does social capital impact women’s business performance in Bangladesh? (2) What drives social capital in women’s business performance in Bangladesh?

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