In our new website Women Home Business , we talk to various small and home-based women entrepreneurs on their experiences in starting their businesses, and how they continue to overcome the various challenges of entrepreneurship. More and more women are said to be starting their own businesses, but what really motivates women to go into entrepreneurship?
One of the interesting studies that explains why women start their own businesses is “Why Women Enter into Entrepreneurship: An Explanatory Model” written by Drs. Muriel Orhan and Don Scott both of Southern Cross University in Lismore, Australia. Published in 2001 by Women in Management Review journal (Volume: 16 Issue: 5 Page: 232 – 247), the study explored the motivations that compels women to embark on an entrepreneurial career. The authors looked at the assumption that women go into entrepreneurship because they are compelled to do so, given the glass ceiling that supposedly exists preventing women to get recognition and climb up the corporate and big business ladder. Push and pull factors are also said to exist, such as using entrepreneurship as the means of accommodating their work and child-rearing roles simultaneously.
Using qualitative in-depth interview techniques with 25 successful women entrepreneurs in France, the authors found the following factors that motivate women to start their own businesses:
- “Dynastic compliance” = influenced by family environment and circumstances such as family business, whereby the woman assumed the role of the head of the business following the death of the entrepreneur husband or due to decision reached by the entire family including children
- “No other choice” = difficulties in the salaried employment area such as the inability to get a job after taking time off for motherhood, underemployment, failure to get good job after relocating, etc. In these cases, entrepreneurship presents itself as less worse alternative.
- “Entrepreneurship by chance” = acccepted the role of an entrepreneur instead of seeking it due to financial difficulties and individual necessities
- “Natural succession” = they are already involved in the business, and the reins have now been handed to them
- “Forced entrepreneurship” = necessity factors such as losing a job
- “Informed entrepreneur” = considered a secure entrance to entrepreneurship, the women may be in a business succession circumstance, the availability of funding as well as mentors
- “Pure entrepreneur” = entrepreneurship is a professional and lifestyle choice
The study can be accessed by registering for free at the EmeraldInsight.com
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