Successful Female Entrepreneurs Research Articles

How Do Female Entrepreneurs Differ From Male Entrepreneurs? Distinguishing Personality Traits Throughout the Entrepreneurial Journey

This study addresses the underrepresentation of women and the so-far neglected process perspective in empirical entrepreneurial research. It aims to identify the personality traits that differentiate successful female entrepreneurs from their less successful peers and to determine which traits are crucial for pre-launch, launch, and post-launch success. Independent t-tests on 305 female entrepreneurs (and 476 male entrepreneurs) from the DACH region highlight the role of self-efficacy, proactivity, locus of control, and need for achievement for female entrepreneurs. Multiple regression analyses further reveal the importance of self-efficacy for every phase of women’s entrepreneurial journey. While the need for autonomy was critical during pre-launch and launch, locus of control significantly predicted female entrepreneurial success in the pre-launch and post-launch phases. Contrary to previous research, risk-taking was not a crucial trait for female entrepreneurs when compared to their male counterparts, while both showed similar levels of need for autonomy, proactivity, need for achievement, perseverance, self-control, and locus of control. The study offers valuable insights into successful entrepreneurship and highlights the need for female- and phase-specific support programs to enhance self-efficacy among female entrepreneurs.

The Role of Digital Marketing and Product Branding in Developing Successful Women Entrepreneurs

This study involved collaboration between researchers at Universiti Utara Malaysia, Women Development, Health, and Senior Citizens Division at Yayasan Sultanah Bahiyah, and Kedah Women Development Office. This study is particularly aimed at examining the impact of digital marketing and product branding on entrepreneurial success among women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs are always considered weak and do not have the power of awareness to change their fate towards a better standard of living. Women entrepreneurs often face problems such as a lack of training and exposure to aspects related to entrepreneurship. Previous studies have shown that women entrepreneurs are the most affected, not only due to the lower size and age of the business but also because the business sector they engage in is also severely affected by the phenomenon of COVID-19. Therefore, it is hoped that the study might help to provide entrepreneurial motivation, expose women to contemporary entrepreneurial knowledge, and educate and provide guidance towards becoming successful female entrepreneurs. The research design for this study is quantitative. The questionnaires were prepared using two languages, which are English and Bahasa Melayu, using back-to-back translation. A total of 44 participants were involved in the study. The findings also show that variables such as digital marketing and product branding have a significant impact on entrepreneurial success among women entrepreneurs. In conclusion, women entrepreneurs must always be prepared to ensure the sustainability and continuity of their businesses. They also need to be more adaptive in facing the challenges that occur in the entrepreneurial environment.

Africa’s businesswomen – underfunded or underperforming?

While the recent success of Africa’s ‘Lionesses’ – successful female entrepreneurs – is internationally celebrated, less is known about how liquidity can fuel the success of the ‘Lionesses’ and other businesswomen. Using information from a panel of over 800 male- and female-owned businesses in Ghana (ISSER-IGC survey), we capture a measure of underfunding, in addition to data on supplier credit, equity and other finance sources. Our regressions reveal a female-to-male productivity gap of between − 11 and − 19 per cent, values similar to estimates for other African countries. However, when financial constraints are taken into account, the gender performance gap disappears. Accordingly, female business owners who indicate that funding is not a problem are associated with higher productivity than males, all things equal. In a finding new to the literature, our regressions reveal the importance of supplier credit for Africa’s businesswomen.

NATIONAL CULTURE AND GENDER GAPS IN ENTREPRENEURIAL ENTRY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This study analyzes the effects of national cultural practices on gender gaps in entrepreneurial entry in developing countries. We conducted a multilevel analysis based on Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) data from 22 countries for 2013–2017. Our findings suggest that while women are less likely than men to create a new business, they are much less likely to enter opportunity-based entrepreneurship. Moreover, we find that cultural practices of gender egalitarianism have a positive moderating effect on gender gaps when it comes to entry into both total and opportunity-based entrepreneurship. By contrast, our results show that cultural practices of assertiveness and power distance increase gender gaps in entry into both total and opportunity-based entrepreneurship. Policy makers should implement policies that promote women’s access to the necessary resources and improve the visibility of successful female entrepreneurs to change the perception of entrepreneurship as a masculine activity.

Assessing Factors Influencing Female Entrepreneurship Intentions and Behaviour

There has been an increasing level of interest in female entrepreneurship across the world in recent times. Female entrepreneurship represents a significant aspect of economic growth, particularly in developing countries, leading to job opportunities, socio-economic growth, prospects of innovation, poverty reduction, etc. Nevertheless, despite the growing awareness of its prominence, the research in this area has received limited attention in the entrepreneurship literature. While traditional cultural norms have been inclined to hinder Saudi women’s engagement in entrepreneurship, this country has seen several successful female entrepreneurs. However, although the Saudi government is creating more programmes to encourage women to become entrepreneurs, only a few have taken advantage of this initiative. Moreover, only a limited number of research studies have analysed the impact of the key factors influencing female entrepreneurs’ intention to start their own ventures. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify the constructs that affect Saudi female students’ intentions to start a new business after professional degree programmes. The paper proposes an integrated model of the theory of planned behaviour and an entrepreneurship event model, validated with data collected from one of the larger Saudi public universities.

Chinese Entrepreneurs, the Party-State, and Gender: Women Succeed in Business without the CCP

AbstractIn this article, we take a gender perspective to explore the relationship between private entrepreneurs’ business success and their Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership. We theorize that, due to male-dominated CCP-business networks, female entrepreneurs are not able to leverage CCP membership into greater business success. Observable implications of this are that women will experience little or no business advantage from Party membership, while men will experience a significant advantage. The independence of women's business success from Party connections allows the possibility that women have carved out an area of autonomy from the party-state. Using a series of national entrepreneur surveys collected between 2002 and 2012, we assess the degree of empirical support for our expectations. We show that the CCP does appear to function as an exclusive “boys’ club” in terms of profitable patronage or networks, while the most successful women tend not to be Party members. The surveys also provide some evidence consistent with a CCP effort to recruit successful female entrepreneurs in order to curtail their autonomy. Our findings suggest non-CCP female entrepreneurs are a significant but generally overlooked socio-economic group with considerable potential autonomy.

Careers of commercially successful female entrepreneurs in context of underdeveloped markets and weak institutions

PurposeCareers have come to dominate contemporary discourse on gendered entrepreneurship. This paper aims to explore entrepreneurial careers as recounted by commercially successful female entrepreneurs to examine how they strategize to construct desirable careers in contexts characterized by underdeveloped markets and weak institutions.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative research design, data for our inquiry come from publicly available life history accounts of 20 female entrepreneurs appearing on an enterprise focus television show in Nigeria. The authors supplemented the television interview data with archival data in the form of publicly available digital footprints of the entrepreneurs collected from their company websites, magazines, online newspapers featuring these entrepreneurs and their social media pages such as LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Facebook and Instagram.FindingsThe careers of female entrepreneurs operating in context of underdeveloped institution and markets, the authors found, are characterized by four heterogeneous ingrained dispositions and actions reflecting how they got in and got on with their entrepreneurial careers: (1) “Observing and playing business,” (2) traipsing the “path less traveled,” (3) a hook to the “Pierian spring” of entrepreneurship and (4) “Grace under pressure” in decision-making.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by providing insight into the lived experiences, agency and careers of commercially successful female entrepreneurs as played out in the form of a contextual practice of “wayfinding” to starting up and managing their own business ventures.

Factors That Influence Women to Be Involved in Entrepreneurship: A Case Study in Malaysia

Women’s entrepreneurship has been growing in recent years. Past studies have shown the push and pull factors influencing women entrepreneurship in general. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate how these factors influence women’s entrepreneurship in one district in Malaysia. Interviews conducted with five successful female entrepreneurs revealed positive kappa value for push factors as compared to pull factors. The push factors found are interconnected to the necessities which include unemployment, redundancy, financial condition, lack of family financial gain, discontentment with present-day job and the needs to fulfill accommodation of work and home roles. The push factors identified are family factor, opportunity to change family lifestyle and family background. This study also focuses on the full factors which influence women to become entrepreneurs. These factors are family support, family economic status, self-independence and the desire to own a business, which contributes to the start and the sustainability of their businesses was also found in this current study.

Assessing the Impact of Social and Demographic Factors on Female Entrepreneurial Intention in Pakistan: GEM Data Evidence

The major endeavor of this research paper is to assessing the impact of Social and Demographic Factors on Female Entrepreneurial Intention in Pakistan because women constitute 50% of the population of Pakistan. Data for research paper was acquired from the database of GEM 2012 APS Global Individual Level. The female entrepreneurial intention was a dependent variable while demographic perceptions, Socio-cultural perceptions, Individual perceptions, and Perceptions of economic opportunities were independent variables. Four logistic regressions were employed to test ten hypotheses. Model 01 revels that the role model and self-efficacy have a significant and positive effect on EIs while, surprisingly, fear of failure was also found significant predictor of female entrepreneurship in Pakistan. The results of Role model, Self-efficacy and Perception of Economic Opportunities are positive and significant predictors of EIs among females. From Socio-Cultural Perceptions, Career Choice and News in Media have a negative and insignificant relation with EIs while, status and Respect perception has been found strong predictors of EIs among Pakistani females. Model 4 includes demographic variables of age, occupation and education. All perceptions (age, education and occupation) have negative impact on female EIs. In order to promote female EIs, the Government of Pakistan has to play an instrumental role in promoting entrepreneurial environment in country. In this connection, female-specific training programs, business support centers, promoting successful female entrepreneurs through print and electronic media are some common areas where GoP can work, and finally, making a conducive environment when females can run their business indecently.

Positive influences of 'Buddhism' on successful female entrepreneurs

This paper investigates how successful female entrepreneurs have applied the Buddhist teachings to their businesses, during the start-ups through to the ongoing business operation. Although Buddhism is a vast literature, this paper only focuses on the Buddhists' five precepts, including no lying, no stealing, no extra marital affairs, no toxics or alcohol consumption and no killing. This paper asked the five interviewees on how they viewed themselves as the practicing Buddhists and how Buddhism influence their choices of their businesses, how they do their pricing, market their products and the results found that Buddhism shape the female entrepreneurs from day to day business operation to an ultimate goal of their businesses. Women were chosen as respondents because it is vital nowadays to acknowledge the important roles of women and the growing numbers of female entrepreneurs. Women in general are believed to have stronger association with any religion.

Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs by J. Bryant

Bryant, Jill. Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs. Second Story Press, Toronto, 2013. Print.Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs is part of the Women’s Hall of Fame Series by Second Story Press and focuses (as the name implies) on women entrepreneurs in the business world.The book begins with an introduction that explains the meaning of “entrepreneur” and emphasizes the importance of women entrepreneurs in a traditionally male-dominated business world. The author presents some disturbing statistics and points out that although the numbers of women in business are improving, there is still a gap that needs to be addressed.The book goes on to examine 10 successful female entrepreneurs through the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries; each woman has her own chapter devoted to her life history, education, influences, and business philosophy. These entrepreneurs are from a variety of countries (with a good representation of Canadian women) and ethnic backgrounds, and from a mixture of business fields: beauty products, retail, finance, technology, aviation, media, construction, and environmental causes. The first two chapters are about “historical” figures who were particularly remarkable in that their businesses flourished despite being women during times when it was virtually unheard of that women could be successful in business. What all the women in this book have in common is a drive and desire to make a difference, and to build thriving businesses based on trust and fairness. There are some good, solid “how-to” tips and suggestions of some helpful traits for success in the business world.There is a good comprehensive glossary of basic business terms at the end of the book.Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs is a very interesting look at the lives of female entrepreneurs, their motivations for pursuing their business passions, and the obstacles they encountered and ultimately overcame. The women examined in this book are groundbreaking, inspirational and have paved the way for other women in business.The language used is fairly advanced and for this reason I would recommend this book for older teens.Editor’s Note: Hear Jill Bryant talk about this book in an interview with the Deakin!Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Patti SherbaniukPatti is a Liaison Librarian at the Winspear School of Business at the University of Alberta. She holds a BA in English and an MLIS, both from the University of Alberta. She is passionate about food, travel, the arts and reading books of all shapes and sizes.

Women and apparel entrepreneurship

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to explore strategies used by successful female entrepreneurs to manage the challenges of running a small apparel business. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research design was used. Primary and secondary data were collected on small business in three countries: Russia, South Africa and Thailand. In-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 11 female small apparel business owners. Businesses ranged from tailoring and custom clothing shops, to small-scale design and production, as well as small apparel retail stores. Findings – Three emergent themes highlight the similarities and differences that surfaced across the participants’ narratives. Key issues within the thematic areas point to the need for these women to be creative in finding resources to start and grow their small apparel businesses, and to manage the competition that they face within this industry. Research limitations/implications – It is difficult to generalize the findings of this study beyond the sample. Implications of the findings for understanding the needs of female apparel entrepreneurs and small business owners are considered. Originality/value – Despite the significance of women to the apparel industry as well as small business ownership, thus far, the role of women as apparel entrepreneurs and small business owners has been under-examined in the literature. This study offers insight into what it is like for women seeking to succeed as apparel entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Sources of Economic Hope: Women's Entrepreneurship

The overall thrust of the survey findings presented here and their comparison with prior research, especially analysis of high-tech firms in the Kauffman Firm Survey sample, is that female and male entrepreneurs have a lot in common. They would seem to start their companies for similar reasons, cite similar self-perceived reasons for success, and face similar challenges. Out of this similarity, three differences do stand out. First, the women technology entrepreneurs surveyed here don’t appear to have had inspiring role models as their principal motivation. Second, women entrepreneurs in general appear to respond differently than men do to failure, and cite lessons learned from failure as a big reason for success. Finally, there is a financing gap when it comes to high-tech and high-potential women entrepreneurs. That financing gap turns into a growth gap in terms of company outcomes. Findings ways to fill that financing gap, then, could have huge payoff in job creation and innovation. What, if anything, can government and other organizations do to capitalize on the growth opportunity that exists with women entrepreneurs? First, building the financial capabilities of women and ensuring access to bank financing and equity financing by venture capitalists and angel investors is paramount to having more high-growth entrepreneurship by women. Second, encouraging greater participation by women on the financing and investing side also might be an avenue worth pursuing. Prior research documents the low level of representation of women as investors in angel investing and venture capital funds. A growing number of angel groups, such as Golden Seeds, Astia Angels, and the Pipeline Fellowship, are preparing women to become investors in this space. More is needed to overcome the gender imbalance on the funding side. Other steps also can be taken to support high-growth women’s entrepreneurship in ways that will allow us to tap this greatly underutilized resource. This issue needs to be addressed on multiple fronts: 1) by offering more opportunities in industry that will give women the experience needed to pursue entrepreneurship, 2) by providing more opportunities to learn about starting and growing businesses, and 3) through exposure to successful female entrepreneurs who can share stories and insights from their successes (and challenges). Family-friendly policies that allow women the flexibility to work outside of their homes and schedule activities around family commitments might also encourage women to tackle higher-growth opportunities. A recent paper from the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration (SBA), found that different university programs, even those within the same field, can provide different types of exposure among men and women to entrepreneurial opportunity.4 In fields such as mechanical engineering, where women represent a small share of graduate students, male and female students still have different experiences when it comes to their faculty advisors, interaction with private industry, and entrepreneurship. Given how important prior exposure (whether in industry or in entrepreneurship) was for survey respondents here, finding a way to address the differential structure of these programs could put more women onto the high-growth entrepreneurial pathway. Encouraging and facilitating team startups (men, women, and mixed) is another avenue to pursue, given that our findings highlight the importance of team ownership in securing financial capital, particularly during the critical early years of the firm. There are an increasing number of organizations and events such as Startup Weekend Women’s Edition, Startup Grind, Founder Fridays, and Co-Founder speed dating that serve as encouraging examples of ways to meet this need. Programs that specifically target women-owned, high-growth-potential firms also have shown considerable success. Astia and Springboard Enterprises are two programs that have built successful track records in helping scale women-owned companies by providing them access to equity financing, as well as business mentorship and training. Clearly, more of these types of programs are needed if we are going to truly move the needle on high-growth women’s entrepreneurship.

Educational Attainment as Critical Characteristic for Successful Female Entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta

Educational Attainment as Critical Characteristic for Successful Female Entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta

An exploration of the challenges facing women starting business at fifty

Purpose – The paper aims to investigate the motivations, goals, challenges, successes and needs of older women starting new ventures. Design/methodology/approach – In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten successful female entrepreneurs who had created their businesses at age 50 or over. The key areas of focus included the women's motivation for starting a business, their previous work experience, potential barriers/enabling factors (including their human, social and financial capital), and the performance of their ventures. Responses were taped, transcribed, coded, grouped and analyzed. Findings – The primary trigger for older women to start a new venture appears to be the need to find a creative outlet (self-actualization). Further, more than half the women stated that because they now had significantly reduced family responsibilities, this was the time for them to pursue their own goals. Interestingly, a majority of the women had started new ventures in an area completely unrelated to their previous work experience. Family support, particularly from their spouse/partner, was acknowledged by virtually all the women as an important factor contributing to the success of their ventures. All the ventures were profitable and growing. Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest that well-trained mentors could make a significant difference to this older cohort of female entrepreneurs, particularly in terms of helping them to grow their businesses. Originality/value – This study fills a gap in the literature by providing an understanding of the motivations and needs of older female entrepreneurs.

Educational Attainment as Critical Characteristic for Successful Female Entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta

Educational Attainment as Critical Characteristic for Successful Female Entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta

Exploring the skills, knowledge and attitudes of successful female entrepreneurs in Ghana

Article history: Received September 28, 2012 Received in revised format 19 November 2012 Accepted 20 November 2012 Available online November 27 2012 The Indigenous Ghanaian woman entrepreneur, this study found exhibits many similarities with their counterparts in other countries in terms of their personality traits. However, they differed in other aspects such as their educational backgrounds and modes of entrepreneurial skills acquisition. Through their entrepreneurial activities the women have made substantial contributions to the economic growth of Ghana in terms of innovation, job creation, and reduction in poverty and unemployment. Using a survey methodology, this study concludes that to succeed as a female entrepreneur in Ghana, one requires some specific knowledge, skills and attitudes. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

A family portrait of Canada's most successful female entrepreneurs

In an attempt to study the factors contributing to the decision to become an entrepreneur, an intensive interview survey of 36 successful women entrepreneurs was conducted. The importance of paternal occupation and psychodynamic interactions with both the mother and father was highlighted. The study revealed mirror images of the patterns found to be correlated with male entrepreneurship.