Women’s entrepreneurship in the UAE: Making dreams come true
New Frontiers and entrepreneurial places
Panda (2018) provides a literature review for the period 2005 to 2017 on issues women face succeeding in entrepreneurship in developing countries. She finds women in the UAE face “gender discrimination”, “work family conflict”, “lack of entrepreneurial training and education” and “personality-based constraints” (p18). Throughout the (limited) literature, particularly on UAE nationals, there are conflicting findings on both barriers and ‘enablers’ (Jabeen and Faisal, 2018). As the context of UAE is a complex one, being at the nexus of both globalization and Islamic culture, the treatment of women in the extant literature is inadequate for developing theory or reaching valid conclusions. As such, the call by Henry et al (2016) for a reconsideration of women’s entrepreneurship in terms of framing and also methodology, is compelling. Here we seek to “demonstrate the profoundly gendered nature of entrepreneurship” (p218) by redefining and recontextualising entrepreneurship for Emirati women.
Aim
Prior studies on women entrepreneurship conducted in the Arab Muslim region focus mainly on the motivations and barriers to entrepreneurship. While it is important to examine the motivations and barriers for women entrepreneurs to understand their ‘why or why not?’ decision to start their own business, there is a gap in our understanding on the entrepreneurial pathways of women in this Arab Muslim society. There is a dearth of knowledge on the challenges faced by these women entrepreneurs and how they overcome them. As the UAE is developing a raft of changes to support women entrepreneurs, our study unfolds some stories that can be used as lessons or inspiration to prospective women entrepreneurs. This is also in line with the call of Tlaiss (2015b; 578) to reflect on “the success of women-owned businesses and how owners operationalise their successes”. Extending Tlaiss (2014; 2015b) on motivations, we interview fifteen established Emirati women entrepreneurs to glean operational insights post start-up experiences.
Methodology
Women entrepreneurship involves multiple realities that are socially constructed and constantly changing (Berger & Luckmann, 2002). In view of the UAE’s desire to achieve gender balance and strengthen women empowerment in recent years, it serves as a unique research context compared to neighbouring countries in Middle East region. Following an inductive reasoning approach aiming for new discovery, we conduct semi-structured interviews with fifteen women entrepreneurs in Al Ain City, Abu Dhabi Emirate. Al Ain has the largest number of Emirati national’s resident, and is home to the main campus of the main national university (UAEU) where the majority of the graduates are women. We used three criteria to select Emirati women into the study. Following the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) classification, to be considered as part of our sample, firstly the woman entrepreneur must have a business which has existed for more than 42-months. This allows her to provide sufficient evidence and experience of her entrepreneurial journey. Second, she must also employ at least two full-time workers to show her ability in job creation. Third, she must fully own and manage her business herself. The interviewees were contacted through Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. All of the businesses are in the category of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) with 3-40 employees, consistent with previous studies (Nichter & Goldmark, 2009; Minniti, & Naudé, 2010). Personal observations of the entrepreneurs and their business operations were included in the interview notes for triangulation purposes. Qualitative data analysis software Nvivo 11 was used to discover the emergent patterns and themes.
Contribution
Our study offers several theoretical contributions. We respond to Henry et al. (2016) in considering the gender of our interviewees is a socially and culturally constituted framework, and believe this to be consistent with Islamic teaching, which primarily regards Muslims as believers to be evaluated according to their good deeds before any other consideration – including their biological assignment and its associated skills and qualities. The findings shed light on how women’s entrepreneurship is shifting gradually in the Arab Muslim society where women’s role are being redefined. While the women are being empowered by the institutions with better education and access to start-up assistance, our findings showcased some of their entrepreneurial struggles along the growth pathway. Though the women are protected and provided for under the Islamic social structure, women entrepreneurs do not enjoy any privilege in the business world. They have to work as hard as their male counterparts, sometimes harder, to gain legitimacy in the industry. These women entrepreneurs prefer to venture into ‘safe’ havens such as creative and service industries, where the industry structure is more fragmented, allowing many niche players to co-exist.
Prior studies (Tlaiss, 2014; Panda, 2018) have also suggested that the UAE society has a high fear of failure with a risk-averse mentality resulting in the rejection of the idea of women starting their own businesses. However, this is inconsistent with the fact that women are not financially vulnerable, given they are not responsible for the financial support of anyone - even themselves – and are very confident of their own abilities. The uncertainty avoidance and risk profiles are worthy of further investigation. There is literature that suggests that the attribution of a risk averse mentality in Muslim populations is an inverted reading of an Islamic mind set which suggests just the opposite (Sulaiman, and Willett, 2003). Instead of either paid-employment or staying at home, these women entrepreneurs are engaging with a higher risk by working for themselves. As shown in the findings, they have struggled in growing their businesses and paid substantially for some early poor decisions made. Their privileged and protected upbringing results in some challenges in the beginning but through this steep learning curve, they have developed persistence and become firm in their business dealings. Their entrepreneurial passion, unwavering hard work and positive attitudes help them continue growing their venture with plans for future expansions.
Many women entrepreneurs worldwide are being denied any support towards becoming an entrepreneur because of cultural stereotypes of women’s roles in society (Erogul and McCrohan, 2008; Tlaiss 2015b). Our study extends prior findings in this context by showing how the society is transforming the landscape of women’s entrepreneurship in this country. We found strong moral and financial support from both parents and spouses, indicating entrepreneurship is an acceptable, even desirable, career pathway for the women in UAE. In addition, many of these women entrepreneurs are aware of the financial assistance provided by the governments and financial institutions that allowed them to start their business with sufficient capital. We could not find any evidence of gender discrimination in their access to financial assistance as portrayed in Tlaiss (2015b). This could be due to the improving awareness through the education system and social networks. Our sample are exceptionally confident, and are strongly agentic in pursuing their goals and dreams in entrepreneurship. They are extensively and happily supported by their culture, their religion, their families, husbands and their state.
Implications for policy
There is a saying ‘success breeds success”, and the findings from our study provides some pointers for future women entrepreneurs. As many of the oil-dependence Arab Muslim countries are moving towards a more diversified economy with much emphasis on entrepreneurship, the stories shared by these women entrepreneurs offer valuable lessons. Still, women entrepreneurs must be ready to overcome limitations to gain market acceptance. Besides the favourable external enablers from government, family and society, it is important for the women entrepreneurs to be intrinsically motivated with entrepreneurial passion and positive attitudes in tackling challenges. All the Emirati women entrepreneurs we interviewed are located in the Al Ain city, our study reveals that many of them are well supported by their culture and received financial support from the family. They also have good access to public funding and women-centric assistance programs. This leads us to ponder on the efficiency of government funding. To ensure Emirati women living in rural areas are not left behind in pursuing entrepreneurial dreams, government funding could be better targeted to less advantaged groups where the level of entrepreneurship is much lower.
Factors influencing Business Performance of Women Entrepreneurs in SMEs in Bangladesh
KEYWORDS:
Women Entrepreneurs; Business Performance; SME, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, Emerging economy
ABSTRACT:
This paper explores entrepreneurial eco-system factors impacting the business performance of 174 Bangladeshi women-owned SMEs. Majority of the researches on women entrepreneurs are based in developed economies especially the USA and Europe; there exist relatively a few researches on business performance of female-led SMEs in developing economies (De Vita, Mari and Poggesi, 2014). Existing literature reports of difference in social structure in terms of family, work and social life between developed and developing nations (Lerner, Brush and Hisrich, 1997). But these variations have not been taken into consideration in explaining the business performance of women-led enterprises in the extant literature.
Bangladesh has seen a staggering 19.8 % increase in labour force participation in the year 2016 compared to 1995-96 (BBS, 2017). Among these working women, approximately 12% are entrepreneurs which accounts for around 0.43 million women (estimated) and around 5.9 % of entire entrepreneurs in Bangladesh (Ahmed, Hossain and Hossain, 2018). At the same time, around 23% of the GDP of Bangladesh originates from SMEs (Mowla, 2018), which also happens to be the biggest sector concerning employment creation (Bangladesh Economic Review, 2014). Despite these key contributions of these SME oriented women entrepreneurs to the economic development of Bangladesh, there is a dearth of research on them.
Most of the existing researches on women entrepreneurs have either focused on the reasons for starting an enterprise (Buttner and Moore, 1997; Lee, 1997; Manolova, Brush and Edelman, 2008) or the impediments faced by these women entrepreneurs in their journey to set up an enterprise (Brindley, 2005; Pellegrino and Reece, 1982). But very few studies so far have attempted to explore the business performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs in developing countries. Consequently, Drawing on these abovementioned areas of academic interest such as women entrepreneurship, business performance, SMEs, developing economies, this research explores the factors that impact the business performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs in Bangladesh. It also explores the magnitude of the impact of each factor on the business performance of these women-led SMEs.
This paper is grounded in the entrepreneurial eco-system model since entrepreneurial ecosystems are driving forces behind economic vibrancy at the local level and economic growth at the national level (Kauffman, 2019). Though there exist a number of entrepreneurial eco-system models at present (Acs et al., 2017), the ‘entrepreneurship ecosystem strategy for economic development’ by Daniel Isenberg (2011, p.1) has become the most popular one in the recent years. Hence, we have followed this entrepreneurial eco-system model in our paper. Isenberg (2011) identified six factors namely a favourable culture, accessibility of appropriate finance, enabling policies and leadership, venture friendly markets, quality human capital, and institutional supports as part of the entrepreneurial eco-system. Each of these factors consists of numerous sub-factors interacting with one another in a distinctive and complex way. Hence, it is important to understand the context of each eco-system which goes through a distinct group of situations and conditions.
This is a quantitative research based on primary data analysis. A list of women entrepreneurs was collected from the SME Foundation of Bangladesh (the apex body of SMEs in Bangladesh). Following this list, a sample of 174 SME led women entrepreneurs engaged in 5 sectors (Beauty Salon, Handicraft, Textile Boutique Shop, Agri-business, and Readymade Garments) were chosen from the capital city of Bangladesh applying a stratified sampling technique. 200 printed versions of the structured questionnaires were distributed to the respondents and after a stipulated period, 174 finished and workable questionnaires were received from the respondent.
Data has been analyzed using STATA. To ensure the reliability (internal consistency) of items under different entrepreneurial eco-system factors, Cronbach's alpha method was applied. Then, factor analysis was applied to find out key entrepreneurial eco-system factors affecting the business performance of women entrepreneurs in the SMEs in Bangladesh. Thus, the factors obtained from the factor analysis were used as the independent variables and the firm performance (annual firm revenue) was used as the dependent variable in the Pearson's correlations and multiple linear regression analysis.
Factor analysis identified policy and support, human capital, culture, and market-related factors as instrumental to these women entrepreneurs’ business performance. The Cronbach's alpha test report a value of 94.6 % for policy and support factors, 74.2 % for human capital factors, 60.8% for market factors, 71.3% for culture factors which shows that almost all the factors (except market factors) hold acceptable internal consistency (Bonett and Wright, 2015).
Further, multiple linear regression results report that the business performance of female entrepreneurs in SMEs in Dhaka city is positively influenced by enabling policies and leadership and institutional support such reasonable tax, access to information, access to policy makers, access to technology, access to administrative bodies, government support and adequate infrastructures. Contrary to the outcomes of World Bank (2003) and ILO (2003), this research found that access to information and technology is not a challenge for female entrepreneurs in Dhaka city which might be ascribed to distinctive reasons. To begin with, as this research is done in the capital city, these issues may not be as prevalent as the rural locations. Secondly, since those studies were done some years ago, certain changes may have surfaced in between. Likewise, factors regarding government support, administrative bodies as well as support from financial institutions have not been found to be challenges for female entrepreneurs in SMEs in Dhaka city. This indicates a few initiatives have been taken in facilitating female entrepreneurs in SMEs in Bangladesh but this is not adequate compared to developed nations according to World Bank (2007) and ILO (2003).
Similarly, as per the regression results, the business performance of female entrepreneurs in SMEs in Dhaka city is positively influenced by venture friendly market factors such as networking with male and female entrepreneurs, access to markets and access to distribution channels. Prior researches show that access to market, more knowledge of the market and informational network are some of the core factors motivating women to become entrepreneurs in Bangladesh (Hossain et al., 2009). Market-related factors also impact the overall entrepreneurship journey of women entrepreneurs (Brush et al., 2009). Anecdotal evidence shows that women entrepreneurs’ network mostly consists of other women, friends and family members. This structure of women entrepreneurs’ network is a reason for their weaker performance compared to men (Sorenson, Folker and Brigham, 2008). This is consistent with our findings that networking with both male and female entrepreneurs are the market factors which positively contribute to the business performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs in Bangladesh.
Due to the increased exposure of media in Bangladesh in recent years, it was assumed that a more women-friendly cultural shift has taken place which should impact the women-led enterprises favourably. But our regression results show that these culture-related factors such as the positive attitude of employees, cultural and religious freedom, positive attitude of society and not performing multiple tasks in the family don’t impact business performance in SMEs in Bangladesh significantly. So, these culture-related factors such as class biases, gender inequalities and unfavourable attitude of employees are still challenges for female entrepreneurs in SMEs in Dhaka city which is consistent with the outcomes of World Bank (2003) and ILO (2003).
Likewise, the regression outcomes show that the business performance of female entrepreneurs in SMEs in Dhaka city is not significantly influenced by human capital factors such as level of education, having a business plan, maintaining accounting and access to necessary training. Descriptive statistics of this study show that the majority of the women entrepreneurs received education till higher secondary level (grade 12 complete). Hence, it is understandable that these women won’t be exceptionally qualified or taught. Most of them don’t maintain accounting and don’t have a business plan. Moreover, very few of them have access to the necessary training. Hence, these human capital factors don’t significantly impact the business performance of these female entrepreneurs.
As mentioned earlier, women entrepreneurship related issues (such as business performance) in the SMEs have not been explored extensively in the developing country like Bangladesh compared to developed countries (De Vita, Mari and Poggesi, 2014). Therefore, there still exists a research gap around this topic. Accordingly, by exploring the entrepreneurial eco-system factors impacting the women led SME performance in a developing country like Bangladesh, this paper contributes to the entrepreneurship and gender literature. Consequently, it has implications for academicians. However, it also has implications for consultants, policy makers and especially for the women entrepreneurs. The outcomes of this study will assist female entrepreneurs to be aware of the distinguishing factors that have the potential to impact their business performance positively. Moreover, the findings of our study have the potential to help policy makers to formulate policies which will be more congenial to the business performance of women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. Further, this paper holds implication for other developing countries with similar social, cultural and economic contexts.
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Social Entrepreneurship and Women’s Empowerment through Feminist Community Practice: The Case of Mahila Umang Producers Company Limited, India
Topic
This paper presents a case study of women led and women owned social enterprise ‘Mahila Umang Producers Company Limited’ in Ranikhet, Uttarakhand. The study qualitatively assesses the effectiveness of social enterprise in order to empower women using gendered lens. The researcher interviewed 15 women from eight different villages in the hill region who joined the enterprise at different stages of their lives using research tools such as home visits, observations and in depth interviews.
Applicability to the conference theme – ‘SPACE – exploring new frontiers and entrepreneurial places’
Social Entrepreneurship is a rapidly emerging field in India. Despite being an old practice the terminology is nascent to the development field. Having its roots in the management domain, it is a novel concept in both development research and practice. This is particularly true for emerging economies due to their diverse contextual complexities (Bruton et al. 2008; Bruton et al. 2010; Ratten et al. 2016).
The multidimensional understanding of social entrepreneurship has led to definitional debates globally (Collava, 2017). The interdisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship field further enriches it and makes it very relevant for a distinctive academic field of research. This idea is also highlighted by Gartner et al. (2006: 325): ‘‘Entrepreneurship scholars borrow heavily from their disciplines because doing so enhances their intellectual enterprise and promote effective dialogue with their peers.’’ This is where the study adds new dimensions to the field of social entrepreneurship by highlighting the relevance of feminist community practice.
With the rise in neo-liberalism, markets have taken over the role of state and have influenced the state policies in a big way throughout the world. This is particularly true for the so called ‘developing countries’ where the whole idea of development is distorted in the favour of markets. Thus social entrepreneurship needs to be analyzed critically. ‘‘Entrepreneurship scholars borrow heavily from their disciplines because doing so enhances their intellectual enterprise and promote effective dialogue with their peers.’’ Thus it becomes imperative to learn from social work practitioners to effectively harness the change potential through entrepreneurship.
Aim
The research largely explores women’s life cycle from their childhood to the present by closely looking at the interface of women’s lived experiences with the social enterprise and also the social institutions such as marriage, family and gender in the larger patriarchal structure. It qualitatively maps women’s life journey and the processes of empowerment from women’s point of view. Ideas of collective power, power to and power within were further explored from women’s perspectives. The study captures both enabling and constraining factors that lead to women empowerment; social enterprise being one of the major actors that facilitate this process through conscientisation, expansion of assets, and recognition of worth and enhancing her agency at different levels. Women can be empowered by giving them equal access to critical economic resources and by eliminating structural gender inequalities in the labour market (Leibenstein (1968), Tornqvist and Schmitz, 2009). This study addresses how gendered social enterprises can play an important role in uplifting the status of marginalized women both socially and economically. It also examines the nuances of feminist community practice embedded in this social enterprise chosen for the study. Women’s lived experiences form the source of knowledge to explain complex concepts of patriarchy, feminist perspectives, agency and social entrepreneurship.
Methodology
The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of women's lives before and after joining the social enterprise. Qualitative research design was used for this study as the emphasis of qualitative research is on the human experiences. The most important reason to opt for this research design was to get information-rich data. The credibility of a qualitative study is found in the descriptive interpretive dimensions of the experience so that others in a similar life situation would recognize it as their own story. Phenomenology is used to explore the lived experiences of the women who are part of the social enterprise. The researcher sought to uncover the functioning of the organization, women’s daily lives, women’s role and place in the organization and the impact of participation on their lives. Phenomenology is a way to investigate subjective phenomena, and is based on the belief that essential truths about reality are grounded in everyday experience (Spiegelberg, 1975; van Manen, 1984, 1990). This is why phenomenology was considered as the best approach to examine the meaning and get the essence of the experience being studied. Such an approach also provides rich, in depth, descriptive and interpretive information that promotes greater understanding of a particular phenomenon.
Contribution
Decision making process must be feminized by allowing the growth of organic, shared and collective leadership (Hyde, 2004). Democracy, networking and participation are given utmost importance when working with a feminist perspective. Such principles were visible in Umang’s work where women respect each other’s individuality and are proud of their collective. Entrepreneurship has the potential to effect change in gendered relations (Hanson, 2009). Women have traditionally been more confined to home, jungle and the farms in this region. Umang became the new home to create and reclaim women’s spaces in this region such as market, organization’s office, training centres, SHG meeting spaces and many more where initially women’s entry was restricted. This gendering the understanding of spaces finds a lot of relevance when working with women because it is these gendered spaces that allow or constrain women’s progress. Umang has four business verticals namely Himkhadya (farm produce), Kumaoni (food preserves), Umang (hand-knitted items) and Bamboo (bamboo craft items). These business verticals are also gendered because Umang’s product line is evident to the fact that it creates value out of what women do in their lives by building their professional skills. Feminist principles suggest that such community work is about celebrating and reclaiming women’s history and traditions (Hyde, 1986). Building on women’s existing skills can be very empowering as women identify themselves more with such work.
Implications for policy
Social entrepreneurship has caught the attention of governments nationally and globally in the recent years, especially as the forces of the market are overpowering the development paradigm. In the newer welfare context it is looked at as a new way of addressing the pressing social issues. So it is very important to distinguish social entrepreneurship from other development interventions which are focussed merely on increasing income. This is where the policy makers need to engender the social enterprises to fully realize the potential of this newer form of development intervention.
This would mean bringing women at the forefront and acknowledging how their issues are the starting point to engage with them. Most of the times such policies ignore the institutional power structures those restrict women in various ways. Power dynamics in political, economic and household sphere marginalize the women and obstruct her growth (Kabeer, 1999, Ramanathan, 2004, Hanson, 2009). More specifically livelihood programs reduce women empowerment to income generation whereby not questioning the institutional exploitation. Development policies must reflect this gendered perspective by giving focussed attention to women’s overall capacity building. This would also mean transcending the conventional funding programs, implementation plans and program evaluation techniques. Right from fund allocations to monitoring mechanisms, women’s capacity building and consciousness raising would play a critical role to sustain such entrepreneurial initiatives. This study not only shows how social entrepreneurship can reduce the institutional inequalities but also brings out the key strategies while working with the women to achieve those goals.
Implications for practice
In social entrepreneurship, most of the times idea takes over the social and people are left behind. Especially now as the government is encouraging the new entrepreneurs this study emphasizes the importance to keep a balance between the ‘social’ and ‘entrepreneurship’.
Social entrepreneurship is all about considering people as active partners and not beneficiaries.
Hazel Johnson (1992) defines empowerment as a process where women can empower themselves by gaining some control over their daily lives but at the same time empowerment also means to gain some control over the power structures to change them for the better. She is basically pointing out to the larger goal of women empowerment that targets equal and just society. Rowlands (1997) discusses the meaning of empowerment in the context of social work and education. She says empowerment is a process in which consciousness raising alone isn't enough but rather an individual must move from insights to action. Women's knowledge is the secret to build a successful and sustainable social enterprise. Most social enterprises work with a gender blind approach and there is a need to create gender sensitive organizations so that gender transformatory potential of entrepreneurship is realized. The ‘social’ in social entrepreneurship is what is the most important and crucial part of the whole approach as to who defines it and for whom. The study guides the practitioners to be very critical about this social value that can be created with people centric approach.
There are multiple perspectives on feminism and so it is difficult to explain its relevance in development practice but this research unfolds the meaning of feminism for field practitioners. Throughout the study, feminist community practice emerges as the core of gender practice framework. Umang has shown a way forward by enabling women to be social entrepreneurs in their lives and the communities as whole. The feminist slogan ‘personal is political’ re-emphasizes the relevance of women’s personal experiences to understand the politics in women’s lives. Women have multiple identities like caste, gender, age, class, ethnicity and they can be oppressed by several forces (Ramanathan, 2004). Creating more collective spaces for the women on the foundation of emotional connect and the feeling of sisterhood is what helps women to build ‘power with’ and ‘power within’ to challenge the power structures (Rowlands, 1997). Feminist community practice emphasises that when women organize women, it is much more than just women helping women and it leads to an extent of empowerment which otherwise doesn’t result (Hyde, 2004). Most importantly gendering is also about recognizing diversity and ensuring inclusivity so that newer value systems can be created on the shared feeling of togetherness. One of the most radical elements of this practice framework is that unequal power relations must be challenged and adhering to social norms will never empower women (Batliwala, 1993). This holds equally true when the goal is to create sustainable women based social enterprises.