08 - 08th Biennial Conference on Entrepreneurship (Mar. 2009)
http://library.ediindia.ac.in:8181/xmlui//handle/123456789/465
2024-03-29T01:39:29ZWomen Entrepreneur and Gender Issues
http://library.ediindia.ac.in:8181/xmlui//handle/123456789/573
Women Entrepreneur and Gender Issues
Singh, Prachi
Women's entrepreneurship is on the increase around the world. Women -owned businesses comprise between one -quarter and one-third of businesses in the formal economy, and probably play a greater role in the informal sector. Whatever their background, women of every continent is contributing to their local economic environment, and they are showing very encouraging signs of entrepreneurial spirit. Women's entrepreneurship needs to be studied separately for two main reasons. The first reason is that women's entrepreneurship has been recognized during the last decade as an important untapped source of economic growth. Women entrepreneurs create new jobs for themselves and others and by being different and also provide society with different solutions to management, organisation and business problems as well as to the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. However, they still represent a minority of all entrepreneurs. Thus there exists a market failure discriminating against women's possibility to become entrepreneurs and their possibility to become successful entrepreneurs. This market failure needs to be addressed by policy makers so that the economic potential of this group can be fully utilized. While without a doubt the economic impact of women is substantial, we still lack a reliable picture describing in detail that specific impact. The second reason is that the topic of women in entrepreneurship has been largely neglected both in society in general and in the social sciences. Not only have women lower participation rates in entrepreneurship than men but they also generally choose to start and manage firms in different industries than men tend to do. The industries (primarily retail, education and other service industries) chosen by women are often perceived as being less important to economic development and growth than high-technology and manufacturing. Furthermore, mainstream research, policies and programmes tend to be "men streamed" and too often do not take into account the specific needs of women entrepreneurs and would-be women entrepreneurs. As a consequence, equal opportunity between men and women from the perspective of entrepreneurship is still not a reality. In order for policy makers to address the situation the report makes a number of recommendations. Women in a business context are like European businesses in a global context: They have the best assets (skills, experience, products) but are very bad in promoting and marketing themselves. Importance rating of success factors by women showed that skills that women have "naturally" like soft skills (supportive leadership, intercultural skills) were rated much lower than those they consider rather difficult (decision-making, delegating, upward leadership). As the entrepreneurial process (the establishment of the firm and its possible growth) is assumed to be path dependent, initial financing and continued financing for growth become related issues. Hence, the outcome of the entrepreneurial process is sensitive to the effect of a wide range of initial conditions, but also to the contingent events in altering these conditions over time. Therefore, it is not enough to review the general conditions that affect women's entrepreneurship, but it is also necessary to review how these different conditions actually translate into different barriers women might meet when being engaged in the entrepreneurial process. This paper is divided into four different parts: general obstacles to women engaging in entrepreneurship (opportunity recognition and willingness to start firms); specific obstacles to start-ups (assembling necessary information, financial and human resources to start a firm); specific obstacles to managing a small firm; and specific obstacles to growing firms. Why is gender a development issue? "Women and men contribute to development in every sphere; whether it is their personal lives or society as a whole, they depend on each other. The more balanced gender relations are and the more closely men and women work together - and equality is a basic requirement for this - the greater chance to develop and to flourish."
2009-03-19T00:00:00ZWomen Entrepreneurship in India – An Evaluative Study
http://library.ediindia.ac.in:8181/xmlui//handle/123456789/572
Women Entrepreneurship in India – An Evaluative Study
Singh, Saumya; Srivastava, Priyanka
Entrepreneurship has always been a sure recipe for growth and development. For far too long this has been considered to be a male domain with women hardly having any role to play. Of late, however, the scenario is changing and women are being encouraged to become entrepreneurs. Rightly so, because you can not ignore almost fifty percent of the population and expect desirable results. Never the less, women entrepreneurs are still few and far between though many have proved that they also can perform effectively. The present review article is an evaluation of where women stand today in India as far as entrepreneurship is concerned.
2009-03-19T00:00:00ZWomen Entrepreneurship and Gender Issues
http://library.ediindia.ac.in:8181/xmlui//handle/123456789/571
Women Entrepreneurship and Gender Issues
Anbuoli, P.; Sundari, M.
"A women entrepreneur is one who owns and controls an enterprise having a minimum financial interest of 51% of capital and giving at least 51% of the employment generated in the enterprise to women." Women Entrepreneurship in India has come a long way from papads and pickles to Engineering ,Electronics and Energy popularly known as 3E's. Due to spread of education, favorable government policies towards development of women, entrepreneurship awareness and new kind of avenues more and more women are venturing as entrepreneurs in all kinds of business, economic and other useful activities. Women entrepreneurship plays a vital role to achieve rapid, regionally and socially balanced economic growth. The need for women entrepreneurship development is to empower women by bringing them into the main stream of development and thereby improving their economic status as well as will generate multifaceted socio economic benefit to the country. Gender equality and economic development go hand in hand. Since the early 1980s, the policymakers and planners have become acutely aware of the economic significance of women's productive activities and the nature of their contribution to income generation. The protection of women workers and the promotion of equality between men and women in employment have been areas of longstanding concern. Although the principle of equality of opportunity and treatment between men and women at work is widely accepted in most countries in the world, in practice inequalities persist on a global basis. Enterprise development can make a very significant potential contribution to women's empowerment, gender equality and gender equity and has a key role in gender strategies. This is of very serious concern because badly designed enterprise development can have adverse effects for women, leading to disempowerment and increases in gender inequality.
2009-02-19T00:00:00ZWomen Entrepreneurship and Gender Issues
http://library.ediindia.ac.in:8181/xmlui//handle/123456789/570
Women Entrepreneurship and Gender Issues
Devi, S
The evolution of the Indian entrepreneurship can be traced back to even as early as Rigvedha, when metal handicrafts existed in the society. Entrepreneurship is the process of creating or seizing an opportunity, and pursuing it regardless of the resources currently controlled. In India, as over 300 million people are living below the poverty line. It is highly impossible for the Government to provide means of livelihood to everyone. Such situations demand continuous effort from the society, where the people are encouraged to come-up with their entrepreneurial initiative.
2009-03-19T00:00:00Z