Women-owned SMEs Research Articles

How Does Psychological Empowerment Affect Entrepreneurial Orientation at Women-Owned SMEs in Indonesia?

Objective - This research is conducted with a focus on women-owned SMEs in Indonesia, which play a crucial role in driving the nation's economic progress. The study aims to determine whether the psychological empowerment and entrepreneurial orientation of women who own and operate SMEs can be enhanced to encourage further economic development. Methodology/Technique – This study employs quantitative analysis, with primary data collected through a questionnaire survey. The survey garnered responses from 796 participants selected via quota sampling from 3 major densely populated provinces in Indonesia, namely West Java Province, West Sumatra Province, and Yogyakarta D.I. Province. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the model. Finding – The results of the analysis reveal that women's psychological empowerment has a significant impact on entrepreneurial orientation. Interventions designed to bolster psychological empowerment and entrepreneurial orientation are expected to enhance the productivity of women-led SMEs. The research has yielded an alternative model for improving the performance of female entrepreneurs in the SME sector to boost competitiveness by fostering increased entrepreneurial intentions. Novelty – In the framework of social cognitive theory, Women's Psychological Empowerment represents a psychological asset that enables individuals, particularly female SME operators, to address challenges in their environments proactively. This empowerment is associated with a positive orientation towards entrepreneurial behavior. The study has yielded a model that aims to augment the capabilities of women SME entrepreneurs, thereby preparing them to thrive within the digital economy ecosystem. Type of Paper: Empirical JEL Classification: L2, L26 Keywords: Psychological Empowerment; Entrepreneurial Orientation; Women-Owned SMEs; Gender Reference to this paper should be referred to as follows: Kadiyono, A,L; Cahyono, A.B.F. (2023). How Does Psychological Empowerment Affect Entrepreneurial Orientation at Women-Owned SMEs in Indonesia?, GATR-Global J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Review, 11(4), 93–106. https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2023.11.4(3)

Psychological Empowerment and Entrepreneurial Orientation for Women-Owned SMEs: Evidence from Indonesia

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of advancing the Indonesian economy, which slumped during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the mapping of MSME players in Indonesia from the data of the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency (BPS), it is known that 64.5% of MSME players are women. This figure shows that women/mothers are empowered and play a significant role in their economy, families, and even the country. In the end, a gender perspective is essential so that the interventions that can be provided do not exclude women from being recipients or subjects only but view women as agents or crucial actors to advance the economy, society, and culture. Some strategies must be considered to help women become more successful business owners. These include turning informal businesses into formal ones, moving into the supply chain, making digital technology more up-to-date, and getting more women to start businesses that make money. Of course, this requires increasing human resource capacity, training, mentoring, access to financing facilities, legal aid facilities, information, and others, to develop together. The high growth of women's businesses will positively impact economic recovery. However, with the development of economic conditions, the number of MSMEs will increase, and the competition will be higher. In the process, women who can take advantage of the situation and have consistency and confidence in their abilities will be able to move forward more quickly than those who do not have these abilities. This capacity is called psychological Empowerment. Women's psychological Empowerment is the ability of women to have life choices, one of which is making a practical decision about the business or entrepreneurship that is being undertaken to reduce social and economic barriers (Digan et al., 2019). Psychological Empowerment has three dimensions: competence, self-determination, and meaningful impact perceptions. Keywords: Psychological Empowerment; Entrepreneurial Orientation; Women-Owned SMEs; Gender.

Development of Entrepreneurial Competencies and Business Performance in SMEs: Between Government Support and Empowerment of Malaysian Women Entrepreneurs

The important aspect of business performance among women-owned SMEs in Malaysia is scarce and still underperformed. Hence, Malaysian SMEs needs to empower the entrepreneurial competencies among women-owned entrepreneurs and the support of Malaysian government. In this study, the questionnaire survey has been selected as the data collection method for this research. A total of 116 responses from the women-owned entrepreneur in Malaysia were obtained and analysis was carried out using Smart PLS software to generate findings. The results reveal that strategic competencies, opportunity competencies and conceptual competencies have significantly impacted the business performance of women-owned entrepreneurs among SMEs in Malaysia. The moderating effect of government support on the relationship between strategic competencies, opportunity competencies and business performance proved to be significant. Surprisingly, the interaction of government support between conceptual competencies and business performance is not supported in the findings. Hence, the current paper will further provide a women-owned SME with substantial information to focus on fostering entrepreneurial competencies within their respective companies to ensure peak business performance. Findings from this study anticipated being extremely useful to the Malaysian government, in specific Policy Makers. With these results, authorities will be better informed when implementing new strategies and programmes to enhance the skills of entrepreneurs, which will result in better business performance.

The influence of the motivation theory on women startup enterprises in Kigali

Achievement motivation refers to the attainment of business goals. An entrepreneur can receive a reward from the achievement motivation in terms of intrinsic or extrinsic rewards. However, due to cultural norms, stereotyping, and patriarchy, Rwandan women face difficulties when starting a business. Some women broke the glass ceiling and launched their businesses amidst many challenges.
 A quantitative method guided this study. The survey collected 409 questionnaires from purposively selected women-owned SMEs in Kigali.
 The findings indicate the challenges they faced, such as HIV/AIDS, a lack of entrepreneurship skills, and market opportunities. Despite the challenges they faced, their businesses performed well, which supported the theory of ‘achieve motivation’. This resulted in rewards, such as respect among family members, the community, and an improvement in their lifestyle, which is critical in Kigali.
 This study provides novelty in discovering women’s SME achievements in Kigali based on motivation theories. 
 The findings of this study provide a directive to policymakers to improve women-owned businesses under patriarchal environments in Kigali.

Technology Acceptance Model of Women-Owned SMEs and Business Scale up

Women-owned SMEs is the part of Indonesian economic growth. Their contributions to development of SMEs also give significance effect. The rapid development of digital technology enabled women-owned SMEs to overcome their barriers and scale up their business. The use of digital technology is crucial factor for developing SMEs (Benitez-Amado et al., 2010). Digital technology facilitates SMEs to easier gather information, to connect with their business partner and employee, to increase efficiencies and to improve product quality (Benitez-Amado, et al., 2010; Chen and Tsou, 2007). Unfortunately, there are women-owned SMEs have not utilized the rise of digital technology. Whereas, gender of firm ownership influence technology adoption process (MacGregor and Vrazalic, 2008).In order to study the utilization of digital technology of women-owned SMEs, the technology acceptance model (TAM) in women entrepreneurs will be examined. Technology acceptance model is the theory by Fred Davis in 1986 and develop in 1996 by Venkatesh and Davis. This model predicts the acceptance of technology by user. TAM perceived the individual attitude to use the system by its conceived usefulness and its conceived ease of use (Davis, 1989). This study aims to analyse the factor influence digital technology acceptance model and proposed model of acceptance digital technology in women-owned SMEs. Keywords: SMEs Business scale up, women-owned SMEs, technology acceptance model

Innovation and the entrepreneurial performance in women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan

PurposeThis study is an attempt to examine the impact of entrepreneurship and innovation on the entrepreneurial performance of women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan. The study also investigates the mediating role of innovation in the relationship between entrepreneurship and performance in women-owned businesses from emerging economy of Pakistan. Methodology/ApproachData was collected from the 261 registered women entrepreneurs from all the fifteen Pakistani women's chambers of commerce and industries by employing self-administered questionnaires for complementing a comprehensive literature review on innovation and women's entrepreneurship and performance. Data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression and factor analysis. FindingsThe results show a significant direct relationship between entrepreneurship, innovation and the entrepreneurial performance. The two entrepreneurial traits, namely risk taking tendency and the need for achievement have a significant effect on innovation and the entrepreneurial performance. Moreover, innovation has a direct relationship with performance and also it mediates the entrepreneurship- performance link of women- owned small and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan. Research limitationsThe present study is limited to only women entrepreneurs who are registered with the chambers of commerce and industries in Pakistan. Women entrepreneurs associated with federations and several women business development centers have not been considered in the population. Practical implications: This study emphasizes the significance of entrepreneurship to innovation and the entrepreneurial performance in women-owned SMEs. It is a major contribution to understanding the existing practices and theories of entrepreneurship and innovation in enterprises. In order to improve performance and innovation, management should focus and promote risk taking and the need for achievement. The government should initiate support programs for women's entrepreneurial activities; promote fair competition between men and women and give special grants to women entrepreneurs in order to improve their performance.

Emergence of Women-Owned SMEs as a Game-Changer of Malaysia in the Era of Digitalization

Abstract
 
 Given the current constraints of the Malaysian economy to grow beyond the middle-income trap, the women owned small and medium enterprises are envisioned to be the game changers, to lead the Malaysian economy out of the middle-income trap. While the microenterprises owned by women are expected to bring in more inclusiveness and gender-parity in the economy, the small ventures can feed in the big business to act as an enabler of growth, and the medium enterprises have the potential to emerge as driver of growth themselves. The authors posit that classical constraints faced by women-owned SMEs, mostly rooted in resource crunch may be partially overcome by using the digitalized platform and e-commerce infrastructure of the country. However, state-level evidence suggests that majority of women-owned SMEs (WOSME) belong to micro and small sectors, with limited ability of job creation. Also, the presence of medium firms is highly skewed towards traditional low-technology sectors, in spite of educational and technical exposure. The success of these WOSME is actually dependent on the nature of the big business and the state-level economic and social characteristics, rather than the utilization of digital platforms by SMEs. This supports the evidence that success of WOSME is still heavily dependent on the large business enterprises, representing the classical structure. Absence of any effective policy to encourage women SME entrepreneurs in Malaysia constricts WOSMEs from playing the role of game-changer in the digitalized economy, in spite of their extremely high potential. Policies in the country appeared to be ethnicity-conscious, rather than gender-centric.

Access to Finance for Women-Owned SMEs in Palestine

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of collateral requirement, Business support services, High interest on loans, and lack of Information services on access to finance by Women-Owned Small and Medium Enterprises in Palestine , A structured questionnaire was administered on a random sample population of Women-Owned SMEs Enterprises in Hebron and Bethlehem , Out of the 60 questionnaires administered, 54 were filled and returned. This represented a response rate of 90%. Data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS). Questionnaires were administered on the owners of these SMEs and/ or representatives. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to establish the effects of the market constraints on access to finance by Women-Owned SMEs Enterprises in Palestine. The study indicated that there is a negative correlation between collateral requirements, , High interest on loans, lack of Information services and access to finance by SMEs in Palestine, while there is a positive correlation between Business support services and access to finance SMEs in Palestine. Regression analysis showed that variation in access to finance by SMEs can be explained by collateral requirement, Business support services, High interest on loans, and lack of Information services. The study recommended that, financial institutions should simplify their lending criteria and pay attention to opportunities for financing the promising SME sector rather than requiring high collateral ,Government should increase the little support it offers to SMEs, government should launch interest rate-supported programs to enable SMEs access to funds from banks and other financial institutions at low interest rates, increasing the number of intermediaries between the SMEs and the banks to reduce information asymmetry. Keywords: Women-Owned SMEs ,Palestine , Access to Finance. DOI : 10.7176/RJFA/10-8-12 Publication date : April 30 th 2019

Determinants of Access to Finance for Women-Owned SMEs in Bank Loans in Bangladesh

This study investigates the key determinants affecting access of women entrepreneurs to bank loan in Bangladesh. Data has been collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire that was distributed to the bank employees. Factor analysis was used to identify the important determinants or access of women entrepreneurs in bank loan. The results suggest that Infrastructural facility factor, Knowledge factor and Inefficient Management factor have significant effect on the access of women SME entrepreneurs to bank loan. The survey result also shows that women entrepreneurs were having problem to get access to the bank loan but this problem can be resolved if women entrepreneurs have taken above factors into consideration while making decision about bank loan.

Gender and Sources of Finance in Finnish SMEs: A Contextual View

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of gender on the usage of different funding sources in a sample of Finnish SMEs. The aim is also to embed the results into the country-context, which is characterized by the long history of women's economic activity and bank-based capital markets. The funding patterns of women owned SMEs (WOS) and men owned SMEs (MOS) in the data are different: WOS are more likely to use additional equity investments by current owners as a funding source. They do so at least partly because of their positive attitudes towards this funding source. The results also contradict prior studies, which indicate that MOS have easier access to bank lending. Our results suggest that there are no gender-related differences in the use of bank debt. Also in contrast to prior studies, we find no differences in firm size or profitability between WOS and MOS. The results of our study both confirm and contradict the results of prior research and we suggest that this is due to the context-specific features of the Finnish labor market and the gender system as well as the bank-centered financial markets. Concerning the issues of gender and finance, policy makers and financial experts in any country should not uncritically rely on the research results arrived at in other countries.