Emancipation of Women Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Study on Women Entrepreneurs in Textile Trading

Abstract

The textile trading sector in India was one of the largest in terms of production, consumption, export and growth prospects and more women being imparting draws a major attention in this sector. Entrepreneurship is an important part of the national economy. Women owned business are one of the fastest growing entrepreneurial populations in the world. They make significant contributions to innovation, employment and wealth creation in all economics (Brush et al, 2006). Despite the growing importance women entrepreneurship was not considerably high in India in comparison with other developing and developed countries. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report on Women and Entrepreneurship regardless of country, men are more likely to be involved in entrepreneurial activity than women. Examination of entrepreneurial behaviour across the globe yields a clear picture of a gender gap in venture creation and ownership activity. To overcome this situation and utilize the women folk effort fully the government designed lost of measures to empower women economically through the development of their entrepreneurial skills by eliminating constraints faced by them. The measures include various assistance such as arranging loans, training for production and trade, marketability of product, counseling relating to product and market development. In spite of all measures, the women entrepreneurship was lagging behind, because there are lot of factors such as social, economic, behavioral, psychological, familial and social environment, the type of enterprise and other support system were not integrated with them properly. All these factors account for entrepreneurial activity, particularly emancipating entrepreneurial base more. This made important to understand the inter-relating factors for entrepreneurial success exclusively in the case of women entrepreneurs in textile trading enterprises. Thus, the present study attempted to assess the interrelationships between various social, economic & environmental factors with the success of women entrepreneurs.