An Investigation of Women Entrepreneurship: Motives and Barriers to Business Start Up in the Arab World
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Abstract
Entrepreneurship is seen as a necessary ingredient for stimulating economic growth and employment opportunities in all societies. SMEs account for a wide share of economic activity and development; they are the primary engine of job creation, income growth and poverty reduction. It is widely acknowledged that women are playing a significant role in economic development through starting new businesses. Entrepreneurial activities should be embraced by women as the nation benefits, not only from reduction of unemployment, promotion of production and increase in consumption, but also in achieving gender equality, social and cultural reforms.
This conceptual paper aims to investigate the attitudes of women towards entrepreneurship; it discusses the motives and barriers women in the Arab World face in the process of their entrepreneurial activities. The study reviews previous published works on female entrepreneurship in order to understand this phenomenon and bridge the motives and barriers that may help or challenge them in their engagement in business start up. This will be followed by a development of a model of female entrepreneurial process and a female decision process framework which highlights the relationship between motives, barriers and the developed model of female entrepreneurial process.
Main findings of this study include exploring the different motives and barriers that may help or challenge females in their engagement in the entrepreneurial process. Indeed, the developed conceptual framework reveals that there is a relationship between female motives and the barriers they face in their business start up; female entrepreneurial decision is determined by both the motives and barriers through the entrepreneurial process.
Main contributions of this conceptual paper include: shedding light on the motives and barriers that may push or challenge Arab females to embrace entrepreneurial activities; develop a model for female entrepreneurial process as well as develop a female decision process framework which will serve as a reference for replication in future studies.
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